The Grandma-Approved Cake That Starts With a Pancake Mix
As a child, my mother use to warn me about stomping and making loud noises near the kitchen whenever she was baking. Her fear was that the vibrations from my brash bangs and thuds would cause her cake layers to fall.
As it turns out though, some cakes were designed to fall. While browsing Reddit, I recently stumbled upon a vintage recipe called "Sad Cake." The recipe get its name because the cake rises in the oven and then when you take it out, it cools and falls down right in front of your eyes. Many people online claim the final sunken cake is dense, chewy and very reminiscent of a Saint Louis gooey butter cake.
Despite its melancholic name, I was curious to find out if this recipe could put a smile on my face. Here's what happened when I made the vintage sad cake in my kitchen.
Get the recipe: Old-Fashioned Sad Cake
Courtesy of Dante Parker
Ingredients for the Vintage Sad Cake
This might be the shortest list of ingredients I have ever seen for a cake recipe. All you need is Bisquick, brown sugar, eggs, chopped pecans and vanilla extract.
How to Make the Vintage Sad Cake
All you need to do is dump all the ingredients together in a bowl, stir them all together, pour the mixture into a greased baking dish and bake it at 350° for about 30 minutes.
Related: The Simple 1,300-Year-Old Ancient Tomb Cookie Recipe That Blew Me Away
Courtesy of Dante Parker
What I Thought about the Vintage Sad Cake
I had really high hopes for this recipe, but unfortunately, this cake tastes as sad as its name. Maybe I didn't know what to expect, but to me it tasted like a very mediocre blondie. (If you want a blondie worth making, check out Paul Rudd's blondie recipe.) I even dusted it with some powdered sugar for added flair, but some things are beyond repair.
As for the exact taste, the "cake" is exactly what you might imagine it to be if you judged it solely by its ingredients list: a slab of brown sugar with an occasional crunch provided by the chopped pecans. The only redeeming quality about the vintage sad cake was how soft it was. Unfortunately though, texture alone is not enough for me to want to ever make this cake again. They say you should leave the past behind. And after trying this vintage recipe, I can't help but agree.
Related: These Vintage Black Forest Christmas Cookies Are Surprisingly Easy
Tips for Making the Vintage Sad Cake
1. Don’t. Put that Bisquick mix to better use and make yourself some pancakes instead.
