21 Retro Baking Recipes To Take You Back in Time

Here's a treasure trove of vintage baking recipes from Simply Recipes' favorite community cookbooks, newspaper clippings, and family recipe cards.

By
Sara Bir
Sara Bir
Sara Bir
Sara is a chef, culinary educator, and author of three cookbooks, The Pocket Pawpaw Cookbook, Tasting Ohio and The Fruit Forager's Companion. The latter won a 2019 IACP Cookbook Award.
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Updated November 06, 2023
Sara Bir

Community cookbooks and vintage Betty Crocker and Better Homes and Gardens cookbooks are my weakness. I have dozens. For fun I pull one from the shelf and comb through looking for undiscovered or forgotten gems, something that sounds enticing or is so outlandish that the only way to really know what it's like is to bake it myself.

Baking Pan of Chocolate Mayonnaise Sheet Cake with a Slice Cut Out

Simply Recipes / Annika Panikker

Recipes like this can take some of us back to our childhood days, times before fax machines or TV remotes. They might be recipes that your mother or grandmother or another loved one made. Some retro recipes have remained favorites over the years, while others faded to obscurity.

All of the recipes below are ones that the staff at Simply Recipes treasures enough to share with you. We hope they spark old memories or delight you with their offbeat unfamiliarity.

  • Lazy Daisy Cake

    Slice of cake in a small plate with a fork, and in the surroundings, another slice on top of a stack of plates, a glass of cream, a mug of coffee, and a baking pan with more cake

    Simply Recipes / Ciara Kehoe

    Here's a quick and easy snacking cake that's plenty appealing on its own, but the main event is surely the broiled coconut topping. You only need one bowl to make the hot milk sponge cake and the topping, so the cake comes together in a jiffy.

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  • Million Dollar Pie

    Million Dollar Pie

    Simply Recipes / Mark Beahm

    Condensed milk, coconut, pecans, and pineapple get lightened with whipped cream in this cooling Southern icebox pie. Why is it called million dollar pie? Because it tastes like a million bucks!

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  • Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake

    Baking Pan of Chocolate Mayonnaise Sheet Cake with a Slice Cut Out

    Simply Recipes / Annika Panikker

    Mayonnaise cakes have been around for many decades; they're often chocolate, like this one. The mayonnaise stands in for the butter or oil and lends a tang and tenderness to the crumb. Better yet, our mayonnaise cake boasts a luscious frosting that's the best you'll ever taste.

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  • Date-Nut Chews

    A plate with date-nut chews garnished with powdered sugar
    Steve-Anna Stephens

    In midcentury cookbooks these treats are called Chinese chews, though there's absolutely nothing Chinese about them. Chopped dates and walnuts meet in sweet and chewy bar cookies that'll charm everyone who tries them.

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    Continue to 5 of 21 below.

  • Pudding Mix Cookies

    Plate of 5-Ingredient Pudding Mix Cookies (With 2 Variations)

    Simply Recipes / Sara Bir

    A scoop of Bisquick, an egg, a little milk, and your favorite flavor of pudding mix form the dough for these super-simple drop cookies. Add chips and you're on your way to the best cookies in 35 minutes flat. I liked butterscotch and lemon (both pictured above) the best of the pudding mixes I tried.

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  • Grasshopper Pie

    Overhead view of grasshopper pie cut into slices with one on a plate.

    Simply Recipes / Cambrea Gordon

    The Grasshopper is a 1970s-era cocktail featuring crème de menthe and cream. Grasshopper pie takes those flavors and makes them into a filling that's set with melted marshmallows. You can substitute mint extract if you want an NA version. Pour it into a chocolate crumb crust and top it with whipped cream.

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  • Sad Cake

    Sliced Sad Cake in a Parchment Lined Baking Pan With Some of the Cake Slices on a Plate Next to the Baking Pan

    Simply Recipes / Mark Beahm

    There's nothing sad about this easy cake, which is really more like extra-chewy blondies with some coconut thrown in. Get it started with a few cups of Bisquick and brown sugar. As the cake bakes, it rises and then fantastically collapses to lend it a slightly wrecked appearance, giving the recipe its name.

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  • Hummingbird Cake

    Cake stand with hummingbird cake and blue plates with slices set around it.
    Annika Panikker

    Hummingbird cake is a classic Southern cake that originated in a pamphlet released by the Jamaican tourism board; hummingbirds are an national symbol in Jamaica, thus the name. The cake is indeed nectar-sweet, with mashed bananas and pineapple studding moist layers that alternate with cream cheese frosting.

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    Continue to 9 of 21 below.

  • Lime Cracker Pie

    Easy lime icebox cake with two slices taken out on a blue plate with forks

    Simply Recipes / Mihaela Kozaric Sebrek

    This icebox cake is a no-cook wonder that takes its flavor cues from key lime pie. Layer buttery and salty Ritz crackers with a zesty lime and condensed milk filling. The hardest part is waiting for it rest in the fridge!

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  • Bisquick Apple Coffee Cake

    A baking pan with bisquick coffee cake and two squares removed from the pan.
    Simply Recipes / Lori Rice

    Perhaps you grew up eating or making this coffee cake, just as our founder Elise Bauer did. "A favorite family ritual growing up was this apple coffee cake on Sunday mornings," she writes. "My father would prepare it for his six greedy kids, all of us begging for him to pile on the brown sugar streusel topping." Elise says that her dad usually doubled the recipe to better feed their large family.

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  • Baked Alaska

    Baked Alaska with Slices Missing on a Cake Stand, and in the Surroundings, Two Plates with Slices of Baked Alaska and Champagne Flutes

    Simply Recipes / Mark Beahm

    Just look at this cake! Imagine what an impression it would make at a celebration. And it's actually not that hard. The base of pound cake and the ice cream filling you can just buy; the meringue is the only part you actually need to make from scratch. Our tips and recipe will guide you to success.

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  • Seven-Layer Magic Bars

    A batch of 7-layer magic bars on a cutting board
    Irvin Lin

    Sometimes called Hello Dolly bars, these Midwestern cookies are often must-haves on annual Christmas cookie trays. They're easy enough to make any time, just for the heck of it. Baking them is mostly a matter of opening packages or cans: graham crackers, coconut, chocolate and butterscotch chips, chopped pecans, and condensed milk form the layers.

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    Continue to 13 of 21 below.

  • Peanut Butter Buckeyes

    Peanut Butter balls or Buckeye balls
    Irvin Lin

    These delightful chocolate and peanut butter candies hail from Ohio, where years ago an Ohio State Buckeyes football fan conjured them up in her kitchen. Nowadays you don't need to root for the Bucks to enjoy a buckeye...or two, or four.

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  • Snip Doodles Coffee Cake

    Snicker Doodle Coffee Cake
    Irvin Lin

    Snip doodles? They're reputedly a Pennsylvania Dutch coffee cake that has the cinnamon-sugar appeal of snickerdoodle cookies. Stella Parks of Bravetart shared this unique recipe with us.

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  • Candy Cane Cookies

    Completed Candy Cane Cookies Recipe
    Irvin Lin

    Raise your hand if you ever obsessed over the colorful 1963 edition of Betty Crocker's Cooky Book. (And yes, it's cooky with a "y" in the title.) Striking red-and-white candy cane cookies popped from the photos on its holiday pages. Unlike the Cooky Book recipe, ours has peppermint extract for that real candy cane effect.

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  • Texas Sheet Cake

    Texas Chocolate Sheet Cake
    Cindy Rahe

    I can't think of any church gathering or school boosters potluck growing up that didn't include this super-sweet and lightly spiced chocolate cake. It's simply not Texas sheet cake without that thin layer of glaze-like frosting; nuts are a point of debate. What do you think?

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    Continue to 17 of 21 below.

  • Strawberry Pretzel Pie

    Strawberry Pretzel Pie in a Pie Dish with Slices Cut Out

    Simply Recipes / Cambrea Gordon

    Strawberry pretzel salad is one of those Midwestern dessert salad-not-salads that features Jell-O. Our recipe makes it into a pie and uses fresh strawberries and unflavored gelatin for a truer flavor.

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  • Ritz Torte

    Slice of ritz torte on a plate (missing a bite)

    Simply Recipes / Mark Beahm

    Ritz torte is from eastern Appalachia, and it's alluringly unusual. To make the base, toast crushed Ritz crackers and nuts before folding them into a meringue. Bake in an 8x8-inch pan and add pillowy whipped cream on top. It's one of those buttery and light desserts that's also deceptively rich.

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  • Pumpkin Chiffon Pie

    Chiffon Pumpkin Pie
    Elise Bauer

    Chiffon pies date back to the 1920s. If you're tired of the same old pumpkin pie, give this airy version a try. It's lightened with whipped egg whites and nestled in a gingersnap crust.

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  • Gooey Butter Cake

    Gooey Butter Cake Slice on a Plate Next to a Baking Pan with More Cake

    Simply Recipes / Mark Beahm

    Like most beloved retro recipes, the origins of this wavy-topped St. Louis favorite are murky. What we do know is that it's sweet and rich! A yeasted cake on the bottom meets a buttery, custardy topping for a memorable dessert. Our version uses no shortcuts, and it pays off in every single way.

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    Continue to 21 of 21 below.

  • Grandma's Zucchini Cake

    A plated square slice of zucchini cake with cream cheese frosting

    Simply Recipes / Elise Bauer

    The grandma here is Elise Bauer's grandmother, who lived with Elise's family when she was young. Her grandmother taught her to bake, and this cake is one of the recipes she shared over the years. It's like zucchini bread deluxe.

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