30.4.06

IMBB 25: Ration Cakes

The timing was perfect. I had a lonely loaf of bread, the challenge open in my browser, and a friend from England chatting on the side:
"What are you up to then"
"Staring at some dry bread and appealing to the recipe gods."
"Uh what"
"I need to make something out of it for that blog thing-- but not bread pudding or bread crumbs or anything. I don't know. I never,
ever have leftover bread, so I'm in foreign territory to say the least."
"Well when I was a kid my mum would make these things for us som
etimes"
"Things? DO elaborate."
And so it went. In between using inexcusably endearing terms like "mum" and "rather," my friend was able to relay the gist of a treat he remembered from his childhood in Lancaster. Loaves of white bread would be skinned, sliced, dipped, coated, and left to ripen, so to speak. The recipe was so simple to measure and execute that he and his sisters would make it themselves when they had the chance (take note, this is also before their palates matured beyond fourth grade).
After a quick e-mail to his mum, we established that these nameless sweet fingers of wheaty goodness were a way to make use of the least amount of the most common ingredients during World War II. Now, I know all about rationing in America in this time period, because, among other reputable sources, I read and re-read the entire An American Girl: Molly book series as a grade-schooler. They grow a Victor
y Garden, eat lots of brown bread, and save up butter for weeks to bake a birthday cake for the protagonist and her displaced British playmate. It might even have been a crazy cake, using vinegar and baking soda instead of eggs, like the ones I used to eat when I was vegan.

austerityvorHowever, this particular treat is neither vegan nor prominent in children's literature. It is simple, though, and I set out armed with pantry staples and rearing to go.
Here you can see all the supplies: sugar, dessicated coconut (unsweetened, more finely ground, and drier than the American shredded coconut), cocoa powder, and milk or juice. Some rough steps:
  • Cut loaf of bread into slices, remove the crusts, and slice into strips (or "soldiers"-- another great term). Mine were about 1.5 inches on each side.
  • Stir together equal parts of the dry ingredients in a shallow dish.
  • Pour milk or juice (orange was suggested) into a similar dish, quickly dip in the dry bread and roll in the dry mix.
  • Lay the pieces on a parchment paper-lined surface, such as a baking sheet, and let sit overnight.
I used about a quarter cup of each of the dry ingredients and had quite a comfortable of the mix to work with. Because of a juice drought in my apartment, milk was the soaking agent of choice, and I used much more than I expected. My bread wasn't exceptionally dry, so either that was to blame, or the fact that the loaf was opposite of dense-- this was an end-of-the-day, we-need-to-sell-the-white-bread-and-fast 80 cent deal. I know part of the IMBB was to use the best loaf of bread possible, but I was working within the limits of my budget and, as it turns out, the authenticity of the recipe. =o)

These are the coated cakes, ready to be left alone for a while. You can see where there were air holes in the bread, which would have cut into perfect right angles had it been a bit drier.

austeritynach
Now, I have to confess taking a tiny bite of one two or three hours into the leaving-them-alone stage. It was a sad, sad, bitter, chewy, soggy mess of a cake. You must have faith! Wait it out! There is something more appealing to eat in your kitchens, I promise, unless Berlin is in a black hole and the rest of the foodblogging world is once again facing the rationing of ingredients on a point system.

The next morning, the above dusty logs had transformed themselves (physics majors, feel free to explain this) into these richly brown pre-Twinkie finausteritysternger snacks. But you and I both know that taste is the name of the game. Would it still be overwhelmingly cocoa powder-bitter? What about that unpleasant tearing of a bready core I experienced in the first inning?

I was met with a lovely, mild milky chocolate taste delivered by a very moist and spongy crumb. My fingertips were left coated with cocoa... um... coating. I'm not sure what I had been expecting, but these were much different. I did not taste the coconut, though the cocoa and sugar must have married overnight to
make it much sweeter than my earlier rouge taste. Some acidic juice instead of the milk might have been interesting, to give the plainness a foil.

I can easily imagine being six or seven and thinking these were the best things since dry bread (if I didn't have toooo much else to compare them to). The mild chocolate flavor has no offensive nuts, chili powder, amaretto, or other tastes that tend to adulterate more, uh, adult treats. From a parent's perspective, too, these are extremely inexpensive and the opposite of time-consuming, with very little cleanup. Also, although the nutritional benefits are negligible at best, nothing in there is going to do much harm, either. The two minor drawbacks are waiting overnight and possibly leading smudgy fingerprints on nearby surfaces.
This little cake is showing off, treating you to a photograph of its innards. The texture is evident here.

It's almost like I am a parent. I live in England, maybe on Penny Lane (hey, it's my hypothetical situation), and there's a war on-- maybe my brothers or husband or neighbors are fighting. Last night I had scraped together what was left in the cupboards, and set the tray in the pantry, next to my canning supplies for stretching what grows in our garden. My youngest just got back from asking for bottle caps, door-to-door, for the school scrap drive. I bring out the cakes, stir up a glass of powdered milk, and we sit down to have something sweet.
Mmm.

4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey... Please make these for me when you return home this summer....I think they would go great with root beer!
....Dad

11:02 PM  
Blogger Derrick said...

It's amazing how much they transform overnight. Thanks for participating.

4:42 PM  
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