When was Coke cake created?

November 12, 2006 11:20 AM

Is Coca-Cola cake a product of wartime privation?

My favorite dessert of all time is carrot cake, partly because it is delicious and partly because it has a good story, which you may already know. It was created during WWII in England when sugar and butter was rationed. Cooks grated carrots into their cake batter. (I'm assuming they went without the buttercream icing that's on it now.)

So, I was telling this to a friend and he said that he was under the impression that Coca-Cola cake was the product of a similar set of circumstances. I, on the other hand, can't imagine that people who were short of anything so basic as sugar would have access to Coke.

Does the hive mind know when Coca-Cola cake was first created...?

posted by killerinsideme to food & drink (8 comments total)

I think that Coca Cola was able to secure extra sugar by telling the government it would be important for morale as an American icon. Soldiers were given plenty of Coca Cola and Pepsi was f***** over because they didn't get any of the ration.
posted by Napierzaza at 11:31 AM on November 12, 2006

Wikipedia might help.
posted by roomwithaview at 11:41 AM on November 12, 2006

I think the theory is plausible, even though I doubt it to be true. If you're interested, the book Something From the Oven: Reinventing Dinner in 1950s America, talks about the rist of cake mix and other easy-to-make recipes from cans and boxes in the 1950s. Seeing how Coke Cake is made without cake mix, it's conceivable that it was created in an era before those products became widespread.
posted by allen.spaulding at 11:48 AM on November 12, 2006

Maybe he was talking about Fanta?
posted by snownoid at 12:00 PM on November 12, 2006

Sorry, I missed the "cake" part.
posted by snownoid at 12:09 PM on November 12, 2006

My understanding from having just read Constance Hays' Pop: Truth and Power at the Coca-Cola Company is that these sorts of recipes were part of Coca-Cola's drive to maximum consumption in areas where saturation point had apparently already been reached. I wouldn't be surprised if they were keen to perpetuate some kind of wartime survival myth as an alternative history, however.
posted by RokkitNite at 1:44 PM on November 12, 2006

Sorry - maximise consumption.
posted by RokkitNite at 1:45 PM on November 12, 2006

The version of CocaCola cake I know is very much like what's called Texas Sheet Cake or Church Chocolate Cake (depending on the cookbook), and it's a simple substitution of Coke for water in the cake. It's hardly a privation/ration cake, though, with buttermilk and eggs and sugar as well as Coke.
posted by jlkr at 6:46 PM on November 12, 2006