Photo: Murray Hall • Food Styling: Jessie YuChen
Crafty Depression-era bakers created wacky cake as a way to maintain a bit of sweetness in the face of egg and dairy shortages. In the communities of Northeast Missouri, many families still remember the wacky cake made by homesteaders at Sandhill Farm, an agricultural collective founded in the 1970s. Known for its sorghum syrup, the farm would churn out cakes sweetened with the toasty, nutty nectar. Today, sorghum syrup-based wacky cakes continue to be a potluck staple in the region. Local farmer and food writer Benjamin Brownlow—working with his longtime neighbor and down-home patissier Alline Anderson—developed this wacky cake recipe as an homage to Sandhill’s version, the exact specifications of which have been lost to time. Look for sorghum syrup at specialty grocers, or online.
Featured in “The Anabaptist Community Taught Me Everything I Know About Sorghum Syrup,” by Benjamin Brownlow.
Yield: 8 Time: 55 minutes Ingredients For the cake: 1 cup all-purpose flour 2 tsp. baking soda ¼ tsp. ground cinnamon ¼ tsp. ground ginger ¼ tsp. kosher salt 2 Tbsp. distilled white vinegar or apple cider vinegar ¼ cup sugar 2 Tbsp. softened unsalted butter, plus more for greasing the pan ½ cup sorghum syrup For the frosting: ¼ cup sorghum syrup
