Grandma Lydia's Boiled Raisin Cake

Evelyn_Gorfram

There's a thread where a bunch of us are going to hell in a double-decker handbasket; provisioned with all the gooey, sugary, sinful, calorie-dense "Diet No-No's" we can fit on board.

I'm bringing my Grandmother's Boiled Raisin Cake with Chocolate Frosting. Someone asked for the recipe, so here it is.

Warning #1: Grandma made this cake for farmhands doing vigorous physical labor 10 to 14 hours per day. If you are not bucking hay bakes or working on a combine harvester during all available daylight hours, it may be difficult for you to achieve a net calorie deficit on days when you eat this cake. Not achieving a net calorie deficit may slow, or even reverse, your rate of weight loss.
You Have Been Warned.

Warning #B: AFAIK, this is the first time this recipe has ever been written down; and I haven't made it in a few years. So some quantities, etc., may need adjusting.

Ingredients:
1/3 cup Sugar
1/2 tsp Cinnamon
1/4 tsp each Allspice, Nutmeg, and/or Cloves
2 cups Cooking Oil
3/4 cup Raisins

Makings for your favorite Spice Cake recipe (box or scratch)

Makings for your favorite Frosting recipe (box or scratch)
(n.b. In the past, I've always made this with a Vanilla, Lemon-Vanilla or Cream Cheese frosting. But I'm using Chocolate Fudge for the double-decker-handbasket cake.)


Mix sugar, spices, and cooking oil; and add raisins. Heat mixture carefully mixture in a small saucepan. (Do not allow mixture to catch fire, that would be bad.) As the oil heats, the raisins will boil and plump up into little mini-blimp shapes. When all of the raisins have blimped up, remove pan from heat. Pour mixture through a (metal or ceramic) colander, and reserve oil. Allow raisin blimps and oil to cool.

When raisin blimps are cool, place them in a small clean paper bag; and add 1/2 cup of the flour or cake mix. (Close the top of the bag, and) shake bag until all the raisins are coated with flour or mix - this keeps the raisins from all sinking to the bottom of the cake batter. Set bag aside.

Proceed with mixing cake batter as usual. If the recipe calls for cooking oil, use the oil reserved after boiling the raisins. (If not, or the recipe doesn't use all the leftover oil, find some other perniciously delicious way to use spiced sweetened cooking oil. Sheesh, I can't do everything for you. )

Once batter is fully mixed, stir in the raisins and any loose flour or mix remaining in the paper bag.

Bake as usual, let cool, and frost thickly. Yield in number of portions depends on how big you slice 'em.

I have no earthly idea what the calorie & nutrient count on this is, but you will probably need an extra slippery shoehorn to fit it into your macros.

LKArgh

Hmm, I make something similar but I always boil the raisins in water. Is there a benefit to boiling in oil? Do they become crispier or tastier? I am intrigued now

Evelyn_Gorfram

LKArgh wrote: »

Hmm, I make something similar but I always boil the raisins in water. Is there a benefit to boiling in oil? Do they become crispier or tastier? I am intrigued now

Never thought of boiling in water. In oil, they do crisp up a bit on the outside; and they also soak up enough oil to become sweet little spiced fat bombs.

ljmorgi

ILU.

I might make it without the frosting because... sssshhhh... I don't like frosting much. (I was a cake decorator for a couple years in college and am kind of over frosting.) But raisins and spices? Om nom nom nom.

Evelyn_Gorfram

ljmorgi wrote: »

ILU.

I might make it without the frosting because... sssshhhh... I don't like frosting much. (I was a cake decorator for a couple years in college and am kind of over frosting.) But raisins and spices? Om nom nom nom.

Aww, thanks.

You could always do a light dusting of powdered/confectioner's sugar...
...but the true fact is, I usually eat it naked myself.

kshama2001

nutmegoreo

I have a boiled raisin cookie recipe with those same spices. They are amazing! I was once offered $20/dozen from a guy who hates raisin cookies.

This is an acceptable entrance offering to the double decker handbasket/bus.

firlena227

You had me at "raisin blimps" lol

lynn_glenmont

LKArgh wrote: »

Hmm, I make something similar but I always boil the raisins in water. Is there a benefit to boiling in oil? Do they become crispier or tastier? I am intrigued now

Theoretically, you would be slightly decreasing the specific gravity of the raisins (compared to raisins plumped with water instead of oil), which would give them a slightly better chance of not sinking to the bottom of the batter during baking.

Evelyn_Gorfram

firlena227 wrote: »

You had me at "raisin blimps" lol

Hmm... "Boiled Raisin Cake" is kind of ambiguous - I'm always having to explain that you boil the raisins, not the cake. When I was writing this up and describing the "raisin blimps," it occurred to me that maybe I should start calling it "Raisin Blimp Cake."

Evelyn_Gorfram

Evelyn_Gorfram wrote: »

There's a thread where a bunch of us are going to hell in a double-decker handbasket; provisioned with all the gooey, sugary, sinful, calorie-dense "Diet No-No's" we can fit on board.

Interestingly, the thread that inspired me to post this recipe has been closed "because it ventured far off its path." So, in other words, could you kind of say that the thread went all to h*ll?