This week’s bake is Spanish Bar Cake. This cake is my favorite childhood memory cake, that my Mom always bought at A&P. My sisters and I were talking about this cake, so I Googled it, found the recipe, and decided to give it a whirl.
The A&P Grocery store is a part of many of our childhood memories. Officially known as The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company (A&P), and founded in 1859, it was the largest grocery retailer from 1915 to 1975. In it’s time, it was as well known as McDonald’s, Google, or Walmart are today.
This is exactly what I remember the cake looking like, and for a family of 10, it only took one meal to finish it off. (Picture courtesy of The Baking Blond).
It is a very dense cake with a multitude of spices and cocoa powder to give it the dark color.
Plumped raisins and optional walnuts are added to the batter at the end.
It is baked in a 9×13-inch pan and then cut lengthwise to create the two layers.
Cream cheese icing on the top and between the layers adds the finishing touch.
My layers were much thicker than the cake I remember and the texture not as thick or dark. It is a very good cake, but didn’t quite live up to my memories. I did refrigerate the cake, and then for some reason, it did taste more like I remembered.
I cut my cake up into smaller portions for storing it. This picture represents 1/4 of the cake.
The recipe I used can be found on the Just a Pinch Recipe Club web site. The Baking Blond site listed above with the photo, also provides the recipe, which differs somewhat. It would be interesting to those of you who have ever tasted and loved this cake to try each, and see which recipe comes closest to your memories.
I’ve never heard of this cake before, but it sounds and looks delicious!
It was a pre made and packaged cake that was sold exclusively at the A&P Grocery store – one of those childhood memories.