Many Layered Jam Cake

May 25, 2021May 10, 2021 VintageJenny

Multi-layered oval cake on a blue plate. The top is covered in powdered sugar. — A 1929 recipe for Many Layered Jam Cake. This will become your new favorite!

The Many Layered Jam Cake is one rich cake. After trying it once, this recipe goes into my permanent rotation for entertaining. A bit more involved than an everyday cake, Many Layered Jam Cake definitely tastes like more than a sum of its parts. This is a delicious, decadent cake for your next vintage gathering.

The original 1920s recipe called for two different types of marmalade. It didn’t mean sweet orange marmalade and another sweet orange marmalade. This recipe calls for orange marmalade and lemon marmalade. Or maybe orange and lime. Even a sweet orange and a tart orange would be good.

Cake on plate with two small pieces cut off the end. The small pieces sit on a smaller plate next to the cake. — Look at that rich deliciousness!

In search of marmalade…

I couldn’t find any of that locally. My area sells sweet orange marmalade. Period. While I don’t live in the middle of nowhere, I also don’t reside in a large metropolis. But the three groceries I checked all offered sweet orange marmalade and nothing else.

If you want to try this with other flavors, you may be reduced to making your own marmalade. Any citrus fruit can be turned into marmalade. Oranges, lemons, limes, even grapefruit marmalade can be successful. Here’s a recipe for Meyer Lemon Marmalade by the Ball Company. The Ball Company that makes canning jars. They know a thing or two about canning recipes, and their Blue Book is legendary. I own two copies. But I digress.

Two oval cake pans sit on a cake cooking rack. Each pan holds a very small amount of unbaked batter. — Cake pans ready to go into the oven. Each one held 1/2 cup of batter.

Without any other options, I made the cake with just sweet orange marmalade. And Oh. My. I won’t say that I saw taste testers fighting over the cake when we did the original tasting. But I can say that every time I looked in the refrigerator a little more of it was missing. Even the Resident Fruit Hater at my house loved it.

Ingredient substitutions

I made the Many Layered Jam Cake with gluten free flour because that’s what I have to use. The original recipe was written for ordinary cake flour. (To substitute regular flour for cake flour you simply measure a cup and then remove 2 tablespoons of flour from the measuring cup. Then, if you like, stir in 2 Tablespoons cornstarch to make up your full cup of flour.)

This cake is baked in layers. I used a 1/2 cup measure and ended up with seven very thin layers that baked in 12 – 14 minutes apiece. Once baked, I flipped them out of the pan and let them cool. And you know what? Cake layers that are only 1/4-inch thick cool really quickly. In less than half an hour after baking all the layers I was ready to assemble the cake.

Loose and fluffy

I used wax paper in the bottom of the pans to make removal easy. Changing the paper lining with each layer works best. Or simply grease and flour your pans really well so the layers don’t stick.

One thin oval of white cake covered with orange marmalade. This is a Many Layered Jam Cake in process. — Bottom cake layer with a thin coating of marmalade. Ready for the next layer.

Confession: the recipe calls for 2 teaspoons of baking powder. I swear I don’t remember putting that in. If you use the baking powder, your layers will probably rise a bit more than mine did, and taste less dense. Either way, this Many Layered Jam Cake is amazing.

Using only one type of marmalade, it took most of a jar to assemble the seven layers. A thin spread of marmalade goes between each layer. Then top the assembled cake with a nice sprinkle of powdered sugar. It’s so rich that it doesn’t need more than that. Icing would not only be overkill, but it would dull the citrus flavors of the rest of the cake.

If the weather’s warm, enjoy your cake with a nice glass of iced coffee. I wrote about iced coffee in the 1920s in this blog post.

Print Recipe

Many Layered Jam Cake

Prep Time20

Cook Time1

Cooling and assembly30

Total Time1 50

Course: Dessert, Tea time

Servings: 6 people

Equipment

Electric mixer
8-inch cake pans
cooling rack

Ingredients

2 sticks butter, softened
1 cup sugar
4 large eggs
1¾ cups cake flour works fine with Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free 1 to 1 baking flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp lemon peel, grated
1 jar marmalade or two kinds if you can find them
1/4 cup powdered sugar you won't use it all; this is to spinkle on the cake top. I used about a tablespoon in a tea strainer.

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350°F.
Prepare two round or oval cake pans. (The small oval cake pans in the photo are made by Wilton and available to go with their Level 2 or Level 3 cake decorating class materials.) Either grease and flour the pans liberally, or cut a piece of wax paper to fit the bottom of the pan, grease the bottom of the pan lightly, stick the paper to the pan, and then grease the paper.
Stir the flour and the baking powder together in a small bowl.
In the large bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter and add the sugar, unbeaten eggs, flour/baking powder mixture, and the lemon peel. Mix together slowly for one minute, and then beat on medium speed for two minutes. The mixture should turn a light yellow.
Place 1/2 cup of the cake mixture into each pan, and smooth it down until it forms an even layer. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, until done.
After you remove the cake layers from the oven, let them rest a minute and then loosen them with a metal spatula or something similar (don't use a rubber spatula that will melt from the heat). Turn each layer carefully onto a cooling surface like a cake cooling rack. Let them cool for 20 minutes or so.
Repeat the baking and cooling until you are out of batter. You should get 6 – 8 layers. I got seven, with the last layer a bit thicker than the others. I used it as the bottom layer to provide stability.
Once your layers are cool, assemble them. Between each layer, spread a thin layer of marmalade. If you have two types of marmalade, alternate flavors with each layer. Top your cake with a healthy sprinkle of powdered sugar. Refrigerate until needed, and then let it come back to room temperature before cutting.

Oatmeal Gem Muffins

April 27, 2021April 12, 2021 VintageJenny

If you love oatmeal in a bowl but don’t have the time or inclination to make it every morning, these oatmeal gem muffins might be the perfect solution. Only slightly sweet, these muffins taste like you’re eating prepared oatmeal from the palm of your hand. Best of all, you start them overnight. Then you only need to stir in a few ingredients in the morning and bake them.

Three golden oatmeal gem muffins on a white plate. The photo shows only part of each muffin. — Oatmeal gem muffins, ready to eat!

Published in 1919, this recipe was called Oatmeal Gems. Gems are muffins baked in cast-iron gem pans. A gem pan could look like a muffin pan, or it could turn out half rounds of bread. Usually, a gem pan contained some kind of open area to allow air and heat flow around the individual muffin cups. If this concept fascinates you, The Cast Iron Collector web site gives more information on gem pans than you will ever need for a vintage home kitchen. After all, the well-equipped home kitchen contained one gem pan. Just one. The vintage kitchen provided no room for storing extra, unneeded utensils and pans. (Thankfully, I have a garage that I use to do just that.)

Muffins in the vintage kitchen

In the vintage home, muffins accompanied a meal, or they provided part of a teatime heavy snack. Today we eat muffins as a standalone meal replacement and although that may be a vintage reality, it was never touted as the ideal. When I made these I grabbed a couple and ate them with a fresh cup of coffee. That was breakfast.

Eaten hot from the oven, these muffins provided the cereal part of a good breakfast along with fruit, coffee or hot cocoa, and perhaps eggs. Later in the day, served at room temperature or re-warmed in the oven still hot from cooking dinner, they saved the household cook from making a second type of bread on a non-baking day. Since they aren’t very sweet they would go well with a dinner menu.

These muffins taste sweeter at room temperature, although they also go down well with a smear of butter. They are chewy, dense quick breads.

The recipe basics

The recipe starts with sour milk. You can easily make sour milk yourself by adding a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar to a cup of milk. Since the recipe calls for a cup and a half of milk you would add a tablespoon and a half of vinegar. Regular white vinegar will work, too, if you don’t have any apple cider vinegar. However, apple cider vinegar seems to produce a slightly thicker product.

Bowl of oatmeal mixture with a measuring cup of flour next to it and an empty teaspoon measuring spoon on the table. — Oatmeal and sour milk, with baking soda and egg added and flour standing at the ready.

The next morning you mix in some baking soda, an egg, salt, flour, and sugar. Then you bake them. I used a mini muffin pan, which helps them cook all the way through. Since this is an older recipe it offered no oven temperature outside of “hot.” I baked these minis for 15 minutes at 375º to give them a bit of brown on top. I was using gluten free flour. If you use regular flour, baking them for 13 minutes might be enough.

Mini oatmeal gem muffins still in the muffin pan, fresh from the oven. — Fresh from the oven with gluten free flour, which gives less of a browned top than regular wheat flour.

Whether you eat them with your morning coffee or tea like I did, or incorporate them into a proper vintage meal, these oatmeal gem muffins are good to have in your repertoire. They mix up easily, cook quickly, and need only a few everyday ingredients.

Print Recipe

Oatmeal Gems

Small oatmeal muffins for breakfast or anytime.

Prep Time15

Cook Time15

Course: Bread, Breakfast

Cuisine: American

Keyword: muffin, oatmeal

Servings: 8 people

Equipment

1 mini muffin pan

Ingredients

2 cups rolled oats
1 ½ cups milk
1 ½ tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 tsp baking soda
1 large egg
1 cup flour Gluten Free 1 to 1 flour works fine.
⅛ tsp salt
¼ cup sugar

Instructions

1. Mix the apple cider vinegar and the milk. Let stand ten minutes to sour.
2. Place the oatmeal in a medium bowl and add the milk. Stir, cover, and set in the refrigerator overnight.
3. In the morning, preheat oven to 375º F.
3. Add baking soda, egg, flour, salt, and sugar to the oatmeal mixture. Mix well, and fill the wells in the mini muffin pan.
4. Bake mini muffins for 13 – 15 minutes. When they are done, the tops should pop back when pressed lightly. Or use the tried and true toothpick method to check.

Notes

This recipe was tested with Bob’s Red Mill 1 to 1 Gluten Free Baking Flour. Use gluten free oats if you need them.

If you try these, please leave a comment to let me know how you like them. When I make them again I may sprinkle a little sugar on the tops before baking, or I might stir some mini chocolate chips into the batter. This is a variation unknown in 1919, since chocolate chips weren’t invented until 1937.

Interested in more vintage cooking? Check out this recipe for Breakfast Cocoa or vintage Iced Coffee!

Gluten Free Adaptations · Parties and Visits · The Vintage Kitchen

The Original Chex Mix Recipe

April 9, 2019May 8, 2019 VintageJenny

Many of us have been eating Chex Mix since we could walk. We swiped a handful from the bowl as we strode past the party table at holidays. We hoarded those little bags in the back of the pantry when they went on sale. And maybe we even happily made Chex Mix from the “Original Recipe” … you know, the one that calls for 8 cups of cereal and a gallon zip-top freezer bag.

Except, that’s not the original recipe.

Awhile back, I scrounged around looking for the Original Chex Mix Recipe. And I found several interesting things.

Here’s the recipe from Chex.com. It calls for bagel chips, which were added to the recipe after Chex began selling bagged prepared mix in 1985. They call it the original mix. https://www.chex.com/recipes/original-chex-mix/

In the early 90s I found a recipe for Chex Mix that I jealously guarded and made every year with pride. It was The Original Chex Mix Recipe. After all, that’s what the card said. I believed it. At least, I believed it then. This had to be The One. Only, it wasn’t.

Chex mix recipe on card, calling for 8 cups of cereal, 1 cup nuts and 1 cup pretzels. — **Chex Mix recipe card, stained from use, clipped from a cereal box in 1994.**

The Party Mix

Actually, snack mix recipes have been really popular since cocktail parties in the 1950s. Every respectable cookbook offered at least one party mix recipe, sometimes more. Ususally called something like “Party Mix,” they were easy to locate, easy to stir up in advance of a hoarde of guests invading your house before sundown, and most people seemed to love them. In any event, they appeared in cookbooks throughout the 50s and 60s, and every host or hostess seemed to have their own favorite recipe. Snack mix was an easy, affordable entertaining recipe after the food rationing of World War II. A crunchy cereal or two, some nuts, a few spices, and you have a party treat.

In an attempt to jump on the party wagon, and to sell more cereal, Ralston Purina (yes, the Puppy Chow people) tried to come up with recipes to sell more of their Chex. In April of 1952 they published an ad suggesting that Chex would taste great when stirred into your favorite fudge recipe. Or maybe the trick was sandwiching a slice of Vienna sausage between two Chex squares, speared onto a toothpick for easy eating.

Original Chex Mix recipe from 1952 advertisement. Shows a photo of the party mix, a corner of a box of Chex, and the recipe itself. — When Life magazine published this recipe for Chex Mix, they had no idea they were making culinary history.

Later in April, Ralston tried again. This time the ad printed a recipe for popcorn balls, but with Rice Chex as the popcorn substitute. The other recipe on the same page suggested mixing up some Cheese Chex: Melt in skillet 1/2 Tablespoon butter. Add 1 cup Wheat Chex, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and stir until hot. Sprinkle with 1/4 cup grated Parmesan or Cheddar cheese, and stir until all pieces are coated. Now we’re getting somewhere! This one sounds almost tasty.

When Life magazine published the new Ralston ad on June 16, 1952, they had no idea they were making snack food history. The ad touted a new Party Mix. It was a while before the mixture became known as Chex Mix.

Gluten Free Options

Sometimes you have to tweak older recipes for new allergies and intolerances. When I realized I needed to change to gluten free food, Chex Mix became one of my first workarounds. If you believe the Gluten Free label on the box, then you can make the snack mix using extra Rice or Corn Chex and omitting the Wheat Chex entirely. If you are celiac, and absolutely need 100% gluten free all the time, substitute the Chex with one of the square or hexagon gluten free corn or rice cereals you probably already know and use. The original recipe calls for “nuts.” If you cannot tolerate nuts, change them out for something else (like sunflower seeds) or use none at all. Personally, I like it best without nuts, but I’m a bit strange that way.

The true Original Recipe

The first Chex Party Mix recipe contained no Cheerios (unlike many of the party mixes of the time), no bagel chips, no pretzels, and no seasoned salt. I know! Heresy! But if you mix up a batch of this mix, you’ll taste the true flavor of the 1950s party table. And you might find that you like it better.

The original recipe calls for 1/3 cup butter, 1 Tablespoon Worcestershire sauce, 2 cups Wheat Chex, 2 cups Rice Chex, 1/2 cup nuts, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/8 teaspoon garlic salt. Melt the butter in a baking pan, and mix in the Worcestershire sauce, Chex cereals, and nuts. Sprinkle with the salt and garlic salt, and then roast in the oven at 300 degrees for 30 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes.

Yes, this makes a tiny amount. After stirring together 8-9 cups of cereal, plus a cup of nuts, a cup of pretzels, and so on, a four cup batch seems hardly worth the effort. But it cooks in half the time, and it was designed for one party or one evening, not a week’s worth of Chex Mix in a large container in the pantry. This small recipe was probably designed to serve 8 people. The ad doesn’t say.

Give the Original Chex Mix recipe a try, and see what you think. Is it better than the taste you’re used to? Do you like the smaller portion size? I’ll be talking a lot about portion sizes at Vintage Living, Modern Life. They are a key to vintage cooking.