Modern recipes include detailed steps so readers can follow along exactly as the author intended. As a food writer, I spend most of my days carefully writing directions, thinking through every action.
Older recipes often provide far less guidance. Sometimes, they don’t even include a complete ingredient list. My editor recently pointed me to a vintage recipe from 1958 in “The New Pennsylvania Dutch Cookbook” called Have Some More Cake. It uses just a few ingredients, mostly pantry and refrigerator staples, and promises a pie-like dessert with a dump cake-style custard. If you are reading this and thinking the recipe seems a bit chaotic, I felt the same way.
Yet, lately, I’ve tried a bunch of vintage recipes that have turned out beautifully, so I was still excited to give this one a try. Below you’ll find the recipe, my thoughts on how it turned out, and a few tweaks I recommend if you decide to make it yourself.
How to Make ‘Have Some More Cake’
Ashia Aubourg
The instructions in “The New Pennsylvania Dutch Cookbook” are vague, so I had to read between the lines to fully understand the directions for the Have Some More Cake recipe.
To start, make the pastry dough by combining 3/4 cups of sifted all-purpose flour, 1/2 of teaspoon salt, 1/4 cup of shortening, and 1/4 of cup butter. The recipe did not specify whether to use cold or softened butter, so I used chilled butter to create a flakier crust. I mixed the ingredients with a pastry cutter until the fat formed pea-sized clumps, afterwards I kneaded the dough briefly into a ball and placed it in the fridge for an hour.
Once the dough was chilled, I rolled it to 1/3-inch thickness on a floured surface. After that, I lined an 8-inch, buttered pan with the dough. The next step called for sifting 1/2 cup of flour, a pinch of cinnamon, and 4 tablespoons of sugar into the pie pan, then pouring 1 1/2 cups of heavy cream over the flour mixture and dotting it with 1 tablespoon of butter. I followed the instructions, thinking this would work like a dump cake, but, in truth, I was a bit worried about how the pie would turn out.
I baked the pie at 350 degrees F for 45 minutes and let it cool slightly before cutting a slice. The crust turned out beautifully: flaky, tender, and something I will definitely use again for future pies. The filling was less consistent. Some bites were custardy and cinnamony, while others felt gummy and underseasoned, like pieces of a doughy biscuit. But I wouldn’t dismiss the recipe entirely—keep reading for tips on how I would improve it.
How to Improve the ‘Have Some More Cake’ Recipe
This Have Some More Cake recipe had some flaws, and here are the tweaks I would make to reimagine it
- Use a blondie filling. Similar to a brownie pie, fill this Have Some More Cake crust with blondie batter. The result gives bites of buttery, flaky crust with a moist blondie center.
- Stuff it with cake. To have this recipe live up to its name, use the original crust and fill the center with boxed cake mix. This creates a combination of tender crust and tender cake. Top it with homemade whipped cream for extra indulgence.
- Add a chess pie center. The filling in this Have Some More Cake recipe resembles chess pie, which is sweet and custard-like. Make a chess pie filling instead, and add a dash of cinnamon to capture the flavor of the original.