desserts | Rosie's Riveting Recipes

Very Berry Upside Down Cake

I don’t remember where this recipe came from, but I obviously found it somewhere. It was for a blackberry upside down cake, but I’ve made it with other kinds of berries, including raspberries and blueberries, and it always comes out well. I’ll bet you could even create a black forest upside cake with raspberries, strawberries and blackberries. Come to think of it, that does sound good, so I’ll just call it a very berry upside down cake.

This recipe is great if you’re trying to avoid processed foods and go back to basics, just like they did in Rosie’s day. In fact, I’m sure Rosie would have approved.

Gayle Martin

A Very Berry Upside Down Cake

Topping

1/4 cup brown sugar
4 tablespoons butter
2 cups fresh berries, such as blackberries, raspberries or blue berries
1/4 cup sugar

Cake

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350F.

Prepare the topping by melting butter and brown sugar in saucepan over medium heat. Add berries. Stir until mixture begins to bubble, about 1 to 3 minutes. Add sugar, stir and crush berries slightly for approximately 5 minutes, or until berries at hot and slightly broken down. Remove from heat and pour into a 9-inch square baking pan.

Prepare the cake batter by creaming the sugar and butter together in a mixing bowl with a mixer until light and fluffy. Add eggs and mix. In a separate bowl whisk the flour, baking powder and salt together. Alternately add flour and milk to the butter mixture. Add vanilla and mix. Pour batter over the berry mixture. Batter may be thin.

Bake 35 to 40 minutes. Cool until pan is slightly warm, about 30 minutes. Run a knife along the edge of the cake to separate it from the sides of the pan. Place a cake plate over the pan and flip. Lift pan to slowly release the cake.

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Imagine the government telling you how much meat or chicken you could buy, or how much sugar or flour you could have. Strange as it may seem, at one time it actually happened. Rosie’s Riveting Recipes gives a glimpse into life on the WW 2 home front. A cookbook and a history lesson in one with more than 180 economical, back-to-basics World War 2 ration recipes.

Rosie’s Riveting Recipes is available on Amazon, Barnesandnoble.com, and with other online booksellers.

Eggless White Cake

Even with food rationing, eggs, like many other everyday items, were in short supply in Rosie’s day. Food companies had to come up with new recipes to make scarce ingredients go further, or even eliminate them completely. This delicious historic recipe, from Rosie’s Riveting Recipes cookbook, omits eggs.

For those who like chocolate cake, but without eggs, here is a recipe for an eggless chocolate cake.

Gayle Martin

EGGLESS WHITE CAKE

¼ cup shortening
1 cup sugar
2 ¼ cups sifted cake flour
or 2 cups sifted flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla

Cream shortening with sugar. Sift together flour, baking soda, baking power and salt. Add alternately with buttermilk. Blend in vanilla. Pour into greased and floured 8 ½ inch square pan. Bake 30 to 35 minutes in moderate oven (350º).

Eggless Spice Cake

In eggless white cake sift 1 teaspoon cinnamon, ½ teaspoon nutmeg, and ¼ teaspoon cloves with dry ingredients.

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Imagine the government telling you how much meat or chicken you could buy, or how much sugar or flour you could have. Strange as it may seem, at one time it actually happened. During WWII, the United States government devised a food rationing program to help insure that every family would have enough to eat. Rosie’s Riveting Recipes gives a glimpse into life on the WW II home front. A cookbook and a history lesson in one with more than 180 economical, back-to-basics World WarII ration recipes with short tales of life on the American home front interspersed throughout.

Rosie’s Riveting Recipes is available on Amazon, Barnesandnoble.com and with other online booksellers.

Eggless Upside-Down Cake

In many ways it seems like post pandemic supply chain issues we are experiencing today are reminiscent of WWII supply chain issues. Back in the nineteen-forties many shoppers found empty store shelves and had to improvise to create healthy, tasty meals. To help ease the shortages, food producers reformulated recipes to use less of those ingredients which were in short supply. Eggs were among those items in short supply.

Adding to today’s supply chain issues is avian flu. It’s creating egg shortages in our own time. Thankfully, those eggless recipes from Rosie’s day are as helpful today as they were in her time.

Gayle Martin

EGGLESS UPSIDE-DOWN CAKE

2 tablespoons butter or margarine
1/3 to ½ cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1 ½ cups canned pineapple wedges, peach slices, or cooked prunes
½ cup broken pecan meats, if desired
1 recipe Delicious Cottage Pudding (below)

Melt butter in 8 x 8 x 2-inch pan or 8-inch skillet over low flame. Add brown sugar and cook and stir until thoroughly mixed. On this arrange fruit; sprinkle nuts over top.

Mix Delicious Cottage Pudding batter below as directed and pour over contents of pan. Bake in moderate oven (350º F) 50 to 60 minutes, or until done. Loosen cake from sides of pan with spatula. Turn upside down on dish with fruit on top.

DELICIOUS COTTAGE PUDDING

2 cups cake flour
2 teaspoons baking powder*
½ teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons shortening
1 cup sugar
1 cup milk
½ teaspoon vanilla

Sift flour once, add baking powder and salt, and sift again. Cream shortening, add sugar gradually, and cream together well. Add flour, alternately with milk, a small amount at a time, beating after each addition until smooth. Add vanilla. Bake in greased pan, 8 x 8 x 2 inches, in moderate oven, (350F), 50 to 60 minutes, or until done.

*Note: At the time this recipe was written not all baking powders were double-acting. Less baking powder may be needed.

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Rosie’s Riveting Recipes is available on Amazon, Barnesandnoble.com and with other online booksellers.

Lemon Chiffon Pie

from the Rosie’s Riveting Recipes historic cookbook

Presenting another delicious historic recipe from the pages of Rosie’s RIveting Recipes.

People may have had to cope with food shortages back in Rosie’s day, but it didn’t mean they weren’t enjoying delicious desserts which are still tasty today. In fact, this pie turned out so good I would call it decadent, and surprisingly easy to prepare. For best results I recommend using your favorite pie crust recipe, or trying the historic Victory Pie Crust referred to in the recipe. Frozen pie crust would also be suitable. Whichever crust you use, be sure to bake it as directed below before adding the lemon filling.

Gayle Martin

LEMON CHIFFON PIE

3 egg yolks, slightly beaten
1 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
1 package Lemon Jell-O
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1 1/2 teaspoons grated lemon rind
dash of salt
3 egg whites
baked pie shell

Combine egg yolks and water in top of double boiler, mixing well. Add 1/4 cup sugar and cook over hot water about 3 minutes, or until well heated, stirring constantly. Remove from fire. Add Jell-O and stir until dissolved. Add lemon juice and rind. Chill until slightly thickened. Add salt to egg whites and beat until foamy; then add remaining sugar gradually and continue beating until stiff. Fold slightly thickened Jell-O into egg whites. Pour into cold pie shell. Chill until firm.

BAKED PIE SHELL

Prepare Victory Pie Crust as directed above. Place dough on lightly floured board, shape round and pat flat with rolling pin. Then roll into 1 1/2 -inch circle. Fold in half and place on bottom of inverted 9-inch pie plate. Open out folded half of pastry and fit snugly to plate. Trim off pastry to outer edge of plate and mark around rim with table fork dipped in flour. Prick crust well. Bake in hot oven (450F) 15 to 18 minutes, or until lightly browned.

Rosie’s Riveting Recipes is available on Amazon and Barnesandnoble.com.

Victory Pie Crust

A photo of a freshly made pie crust ready to be filled. — © Can Stock Photo / StephanieFrey

from the Rosie’s Riveting Recipes historic cookbook

One of my earliest childhood memories is of standing on a stool and watching my mother make a pie crust from scratch. She could sculpt the crust on the rim of the pie plate like Picasso, and she’d always break off little pieces and let me taste it. The raw dough was delicious. (It still is.)

Sadly, my mother soon stopped baking pies. She always said her mother could whip up a pie crust with virtually no effort at all, so perhaps my mother felt that she simply couldn’t compete with Grandma’s pies. Whatever the reason, her homemade pies virtually disappeared from the family menu, and, on those rare occasions when she did bake a pie, she used the frozen pie shells.

Fast forward. I’m testing recipes for Rosie’s Riveting Recipes, and the time had come for to try making my own pie crust from scratch. I’d never done it before, but they say certain genes skip a generation. I soon discovered that making pie crust from scratch isn’t rocket science. All you need is flour, baking powder, shortening, and a little water. Having the right tools helps too. I bought a pastry cutter at Walmart, and that investment of a few dollars really paid off because it makes blending in the shortening a snap.

Victory Pie Crust is used in many of the historic recipes in Rosie’s Riveting Recipes. And one other historic note. The word victory was a significant part of the lexicon during World War II. It was a moral booster and it was used everywhere.

Gayle Martin

VICTORY PIE CRUST

1 1/4 cups sifted flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 or 4 tablespoons cold shortening
3 or 3 1/2 tablespoons ice water*

Sift flour once, measure, add baking powder and salt, and sift again. Cut shortening into small pieces; add to flour and cut in until mixture is almost as fine as meal. Make small well in flour mixture. Turn 1 tablespoon ice water in this and mix quickly and lightly with surrounding flour only until a small ball of dough is formed. Do not over mix. Repeat this way, mixing all of the flour in separate portions. Then press portions together lightly but firmly into one dough. Makes enough pastry for 9-inch pie shell. Double recipe for pastry for two-crust pie.

*Use only 3 tablespoons ice water with 4 tablespoons shortening; use 3 1/2 tablespoons ice water with 3 tablespoons shortening.

Note: If the crust should come out too dry and crumbly simply add small amounts of water until the mixture has a more doughy consistency.

Rosie’s Riveting Recipes is available on Amazon and Barnesandnoble.com.

Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bundt Cake

I experimented with several different zucchini bread recipes back when I was growing zucchini in my backyard garden. I’d tweak this and add that, and this is the one I liked the best. It includes a box of cake mix which helps save prep time. However, batter tends to be thick and heavy, so I highly recommend using a KitchenAid or other heavy duty mixer.

By the way, in Rosie’s day people grew victory gardens, so I think she would have approved.

CHOCOLATE CHIP ZUCCHINI BUNDT CAKE

1/2 cup butter, softened (4 ounces or 1 stick)
4 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
1 cup sour cream
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 package of cake mix with pudding in the mix *
1 medium zucchini — grated
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts
1/8 cup powdered sugar (optional)

Preheat oven to 325F. (350F for a light colored pan).

Place softened butter in KitchenAid mixing bowl and beat the butter until light. Add eggs, vanilla and almond extract. Beat in the sour cream, add the cinnamon and mix until all ingredients are well blended. Slowly add in cake mix, a little bit at a time, and mix thoroughly. (Batter will thicken considerably as cake mix is added.) Fold in the zucchini, chocolate chips and nuts.

Spoon the mixture into the bundt pan and gently blend mixture around the pan until it’s level. Firmly tap the bundt pan on the counter top several times so that air bubbles can work their way to the top. Bake 45 to 50 minutes. Cake will be done when a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Place on cooling rack for 10 minutes, then place cake plate on top of bundt pan and invert. Allow cake to finish cooling. Sprinkle powdered sugar, if desired.

Variations: Use peanut butter or white chocolate flavored chips with a chocolate or devil’s food cake mix.

* Most cake mixes, such as Pillsbury, Duncan Hines and Betty Crocker, have pudding in the mix. White, classic yellow or devil’s food are recommended for theis recipe.

Rosie’s Riveting Recipes is available on Amazon and Barnesandnoble.com.

Orange Chocolate Chip Loaf

We have an abundant supply of citrus in southern Arizona. So, what do you do when someone gives you a big bag full of fresh oranges? You do what Rosie would have done. Use them to create something wonderful. This recipe is easy to prepare and delicious. I had a dear friend who absolutely adored it.

Gayle Martin

ORANGE CHOCOLATE CHIP LOAF

1/2 cup butter (softened)
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tablespoon orange zest *
1/2 cup orange just
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

OPTIONAL GLAZE

1/2 cup orange juice
1/4 cup sugar

Preheat oven to 350F. Mix flour, baking powder and salt in a medium-size mixing bowl. Set aside.

Cream butter and sugar together in a large mixing bowl. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Add orange zest and orange juice. Mix until well blended. Add flour mixture, a little at time. Fold in chocolate chips. Pour into a greased 9 x 5 x 3 loaf pan. Bake for one hour.

If desired, make glaze by stirring sugar and orange juice together in a saucepan and cook over medium heat until the sugar is completely dissolved. Pour over loaf. Let stand for 10 minutes before removing from the pan.

Orange zest is a term for grated orange peel.

Rosie’s Riveting Recipes is available on Amazon and Barnesandnoble.com.

Soft Molasses Cookies

from the Rosie’s Riveting Recipes historic cookbook

While it may not used as much today, molasses was a sweetener our grandmothers used. Sugar was rationed during WWII, so housewives had to find sugar substitutes. Molasses was one of those substitutes, and unlike many of today’s sugar substitutes, molasses is natural.

The following is a historic recipe from Rosie’s Riveting Recipes. If you’re a cookie lover like I am, you may want to try it.

Gayle Martin

soft molasses cookies

3 cups sifted cake flour*
1 1/2 teaspoon soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ginger
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
1 egg, unbeaten
1/2 cup molasses
1 cup sour milk** or buttermilk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Sift flour once, measure, add soda, salt, and spices, and sift together three times. Cream shortening, add sugar gradually, creaming until light and fluffy. Add egg and beat well; then add molasses. Add flour, alternately with milk, mixing well after each addition. Add vanilla. Chill 1 to 2 hours, or until firm enough to hold shape. Drop from teaspoon on lightly greased baking sheet, placing about 2 inches apart. Bake in hot oven (400F.) 13 to 15 minutes, or until done. Makes 6 dozen cookies.

*No flour sifter? Not a problem. Simply measure the flour and pour into a large strainer and stir with a wooden spoon.

** To make sour milk add one tablespoon lemon juice of white vinegar to one cup 2% or whole milk, (fat-free milk will not work). Let sit for 15 minutes until milk begins to curdle. Add to recipe.

Rosie’s Riveting Recipes is available on Amazon and Barnesandnoble.com.