Pennsylvania Dutch Cake Recipes: 5 Classics

These Pennsylvania Dutch cake recipes represent a treasured collection of time-tested family favorites, passed down through generations of skilled home bakers.

From the unique and famous Funny Cake that cleverly combines pie and cake to the aromatic Dutch Cinnamon Breakfast Cake and rich Molasses Cake with its Chocolate Icing, these recipes capture the essence of Pennsylvania Dutch baking traditions.

Old Fashioned Pennsylvania Dutch Cake Recipe: A Family Favorite

Mom's Recipe Scrapbook (1920s)

Pennsylvania Dutch Funny Cake: A Vintage Pie-Cake Hybrid

Funny Cake

1-1/4 cups sifted cake flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg, unbeaten
3 tablespoons chopped nuts or cut coconut for topping

Instructions:

Line 9- to 10-inch glass pie plate with shortening pastry using the extra flaky pastry recipe below, making a high fluted rim. Make a sauce (recipes below); let cool while mixing cake.

Have ingredients at room temperature. Start oven for moderate heat (350° F). Sift flour once before measuring.

Measure into sifter: flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. Place shortening in bowl. Sift in dry ingredients. Add milk and vanilla; mix until all flour is dampened. Beat 2 minutes at low speed of electric mixer, or 300 strokes by hand.

Add egg and beat 1 minute on mixer, or 150 strokes by hand. Pour batter into pastry-lined pie plate. Take your pick of 3 luscious sauces from the sauce recipes below. Pour lukewarm sauce gently over batter. Sprinkle with nuts or coconut.

Bake in moderate oven (350° F) 50 to 55 minutes. Serve warm as dessert or coffee cake. If desired, top with whipped cream or ice cream.

Perfect Extra Flaky Pastry

1-1/2 cups sifted flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup shortening
2 to 3 tablespoons water

Combine flour and salt. Cut in shortening until mixture is consistency of corn meal. Sprinkle with cold water. Put dough on waxed paper. Press and knead gently into a ball and let stand for 15 to 20 minutes at room temperature. On lightly floured cloth, roll out 1/8-inch thick. Fit into a 9- to 10-inch glass pie plate, making a high fluted rim to contain the filling.

Butterscotch Sauce

In a saucepan, combine 1/4 cup butter or margarine with 1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar and 2 tablespoons light corn syrup. Cook and stir over low heat until mixture comes to a boil.

Add 3 tablespoons water and bring again to a boil. Boil 1 to 2 minutes. Remove from heat. Stir in 1/2 teaspoon vanilla.

Chocolate Sauce

Place 1 square unsweetened chocolate and 1/2 cup water in saucepan over low heat. Cook and stir until the chocolate is melted.

Add 2/3 cup sugar, stirring constantly, and then bring to a boil. Remove at once from heat, add 1/4 cup butter or margarine and 1 teaspoon vanilla, and stir until sauce is blended.

Orange Sauce

Combine 1/4 cup of orange juice and 3/4 cup sugar in a saucepan. Place over low heat. Cook and stir until mixture comes to a boil.

Boil 1 minute, stirring occasionally. Then add another 1/4 cup of orange juice, 2 tablespoons butter or margarine, and 1 teaspoon grated orange rind. Mix well.

More Heritage Pennsylvania Dutch Cake Recipes

Aunt Sarah's Famous Tip Top Cake

1 pound granulated sugar
1 cup butter
1 cup milk
4 eggs
1 pound chopped raisins **
1/2 a nutmeg, grated
5 scant cups of flour
5 teaspoonfuls baking powder
** (Citron may be used instead of raisins)

Mix together same as ordinary cake and bake in a loaf. This Aunt Sarah considered one of her finest cake recipes. She had used it for years in her family.

The friend who gave this Pennsylvania Dutch cake recipe to Aunt Sarah said: "A couple of tablespoonfuls of brandy will improve the cake!"

Fine Krum Kuchen / Classic Crumb Cake

One cup sugar, 1/2 cup butter and lard, mixed; 2 cups flour and 2 teaspoonfuls of baking powder, 2 eggs, 1/2 cup sweet milk.

For this Pennsylvania Dutch cake recipe, crumb together with the hands the sugar, butter, flour and baking powder sifted together. Take out 1/2 cup of these crumbs to be scattered over top of cake. To the remainder add the yolks of the eggs, well beaten, and the sweet milk, and lastly the stiffly beaten whites of eggs.

Put the mixture in a well-greased pan (a deep custard pie tin will answer), scatter the half cup of crumbs reserved over top of cake and bake about 3/4 of an hour in a rather quick oven (425°F).

When cake is baked, sprinkle over 1 teaspoonful of melted butter and dust top with cinnamon.

Aunt Sarah's Dutch Cinnamon Cake

1 cup sugar
2 cups flour
1 egg
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
Piece of butter the size of egg
Pinch of salt
1 cup milk
A little grated nutmeg

Beat the butter to a cream and gradually add the sugar. Then add the unbeaten egg and beat all together thoroughly. Add milk and flour and beat hard for five minutes. Add baking powder, salt and nutmeg.

Pour into two small greased pie-tins and before putting in oven (425° F) until done, sprinkle sugar and cinnamon over top.

Mary's Rich Molasses Cake With Chocolate Icing

For Mary's old fashioned molasses cakes, she creamed together 1 cup of light brown sugar and 2 tablespoonfuls of butter. Then added 1 cup of New Orleans molasses. The molasses had been allowed to come to a boil, then cooled.

She sifted into the mixture 4 cups of flour alternately with 1 cup of sweet milk in which 2 even teaspoonfuls of soda had been dissolved. She beat all well together, then added yolk of one large egg, and lastly the stiffly beaten white of the egg.

Beat the mixture again and bake in 2 square layer cake pans in a hot oven (425°F) about 25 minutes. Ice with chocolate icing below.

Chocolate Icing for Molasses Cakes

Boil 1 scant half cup water with 1 cup sugar until it spins a thread, or forms a soft, firm ball in cold water. Pour slowly over the stiffly beaten white of egg, beating while it is being poured.

Melt 2 squares or 2 ounces of unsweetened chocolate by standing the bowl containing it in hot water. Add 1 teaspoonful hot water to chocolate.

Stir the egg and sugar mixture slowly into the melted chocolate. Beat until stiff enough to spread on cake.