Spanish Bar Cake
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Spanish Bar Cake. A real old fashioned treat! A supermarket favourite from years ago, this simple raisin spice cake is easy to make, moist and utterly delicious.
Originally published December 2018.
A few weeks ago, I got a request from a reader for a recipe for Spanish Bar Cake. I had never heard of it before.
She explained that it was a cake made by a supermarket bakery that she loved many years ago. I set off to do a little research on this cake.
Spanish Bar Cake was a very simple bar shaped raisin spice cake with an unfussy vanilla frosting. Being a fan of old time recipes, I certainly became quite interested in finding a recipe.
Turns out this cake was made by Jane Parker Bakery and sold through the A&P supermarket chain in the US & Canada. The reader who sent me the request grew up in Ottawa.
I have since heard that it was available in Toronto when a friend was growing up there 20 or so years ago.
There were a few recipes I found on a few websites but none of them definitively said they were the original recipe.
I finally came across an old entry in an online food forum which claimed to have been gotten from Jane Parker Bakery.
The recipe was written for two 9x13 pans. Those two layers would have been frosted and stacked, then cut down the middle to produce 2 bar cakes.
What the Spanish inference relates to is completely lost on me, except if that's where the raisins came from.
Spanish Bar Cake, the result.
I cannot say with any certainty that this was the original recipe. The reader who tried it called it a "very good raisin spice cake" but not quite the flavour she remembered.
Memory is a funny thing though. We sometimes like to imagine things better than they actually were.
Then again, with such a widespread production of this cake, there may have been subtle differences in the recipe used regionally.
She noted that a tablespoon of cocoa, which some recipes add, would make it the darker colour she remembered. She also said the flavour was not so intense as she remembered.
The intenseness of flavour in this recipe would really have to come from the spices. My suggestion would be to add 1 tablespoon of cocoa to the dry ingredients and to up the amount of spices by half, if you want a more deeply flavoured cake.
So, for my taste, and Spouse's, who loves spice cake, this was a really delicious, easy to make cake.
We brought it to a friends house for dinner and it got rave reviews. Next time I will try it with the adjustments I mentioned, but I would be more than content to enjoy it again, just as we made it.
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Spanish Bar Cake
Spanish Bar Cake. A real old fashioned treat! A supermarket favourite from years ago, this simple raisin spice cake is easy to make, moist and utterly delicious.
Ingredients
- 2 cups water
- 1 cups raisins
- ½ cup vegetable shortening, or butter
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoons baking soda
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon ground cloves
- ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- ½ teaspoon ground allspice
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 large egg, beaten
- ½ cup chopped walnuts or pecans, (optional)
For the Frosting
- 2 ¼ cups icing sugar
- ¼ cup butter, at room temperature
- ½ teaspoon pure vanilla
- 1 to 2 tablespoons milk, more if needed
Instructions
- Heat the oven to 325 degrees. Grease a 9x13 baking pan and line it with parchment paper.
- Add the water and raisins to a saucepan. Bring to a gentle boil and simmer for 10 minutes.
- Add the shortening to the boiled mixture. Allow the mixture to cool to room temperature.
- Sift together the sugar, soda, flour, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and salt.
- Add the sifted ingredients to the cooled raisin mixture, along with the beaten egg and the nuts, if you are adding them.
- Fold gently until the flour is just incorporated into the batter. Do not over mix.
- Pour the batter evenly into the prepared pan and Bake for 30-35 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean.
- Cool completely and ice with frosting if you like
To prepare the frosting
- Beat together the icing sugar, butter, vanilla and a tablespoon of milk until smooth.
- If necessary, add more milk until the frosting is a good spreadable consistency.
- Cut the cake in half, frost the first layer then top with the second layer and frost again. To get the characteristic lines on top, run the back of a fork over the top frosting in straight lines.
- This recipe also makes about a dozen cupcakes if you prefer.
Notes
The nutritional information provided is automatically calculated by third party software and is meant as a guideline only. Exact accuracy is not guaranteed. For recipes where all ingredients may not be used entirely, such as those with coatings on meats, or with sauces or dressings for example, calorie & nutritional values per serving will likely be somewhat lower than indicated.
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Rock Recipes a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. Our product recommendations are almost exclusively for those we currently use or have used in the past.
Nutrition Information
Yield
12Serving Size
1 slice (1/12 of the cake)Amount Per Serving Calories 346Saturated Fat 2gCholesterol 13mgSodium 201mgCarbohydrates 64gFiber 1gSugar 38gProtein 2g
I was just talking to my sister about the Spanish Bar Cake our Mom got at the A&P store , in Rome,N.Y.when we were kids, it was great. Found this recipe and going to try it. Sounds delious.
I will definitely be trying this recipe as we had this cake as a treat when I was little. For anyone wanting the original Metro (which used to be A&P) grocery stores just started marketing them again this year.
I couldn't wait until my mom would bring the Spanish Bar Cake home from the store! I loved it. I have missed it and never thought I would enjoy a slice of it again! Thank you so very much for finding the recipe and sharing it. I can hardly wait to make it!🙂
So moist. Comes together in no time. I initially thought that the batter was going to be too wet and take much longer to bake but 35 minutes was the max. it needed. I'm pleased with the finished product and am sharing with a neighbour who is not a baker.
I found my people! My gran always had this cake and the texture of the icing was so perfect. I agree that it was very gingerbread tasting. In London On there were no nuts. It was a reddish brown with raisins. I added buttermilk to the icing instead of milk and it gave it a very vintage taste. Recommend doing that.
My dad and I loved sharing this cake together, especially as a special treat on vacation. I've made it a few times, and adding about 2 tablespoons molasses to the hot raisin mixture and measuring the spices by heart (not teaspoons) is they key for me. The icing with the lines on top makes it all come together!
A friend and I were just talking about this fabulous "Spanish Bar" - what I remember is less nuts, darker (plump) raisins, and darker cake... and I could have eaten the entire thing in one sitting! I have an old recipe and when I find it, I will post it!~ Another thing, I don't like frosting, but the frosting on this cake was great and suited the flavor of the cake perfectly! (I pinned your post so as not to loose it!)
Many thanks for researching and sharing this recipe. I grew up in Ottawa, just down the street from an A&P. My Mom used to buy Spanish Bar Cake all the time. And apparently I liked it so much that when my birthday came around, Mom eventually stopped baking a birthday cake and put the candles on a Spanish Bar Cake instead. Did I mention my Mom was awesome?! LOL. Anyway, I have never baked a cake from scratch but I will try this recipe and think about my Mom when I enjoy a nice fresh piece of Spanish Bar Cake.
I loved this cake, especially in fall and winter. It was usually regular layers cut into thinner ones (I believe four). My father would get from A&P and he and I would eat on it all week. I was one of 7 kids ... but the only one who loved the cake.
My next favorite dessert my father and I shared a love for was the mincemeat pie.
Food brings back so many memories ... good talks over cake/pie and a cold glass of milk!
Hi, I just found your page when doing a search for this cake recipe. I have fond memories of my old Uncle who would buy this for us with a half gallon of vanilla ice cream in the early 60's, whenever he came for dinner. I was a kid, and we always loved this special treat. He would shop at the A&P in Waterbury, CT. I haven't baked in a long time, but I'd like to try this. I remember it having the darker color, and always thought there must have been some molasses in it, it kind of tasted like that, if I remember correctly. I might try that instead of the cocoa to see how it turns out.
I enjoyed learning the history behind this memorable cake, thank you for the research you did, and thank you for the recipe.
Down here in FL growing up our Publix Supermarkets sold Spanish Bar cakes but I don't remember the A&P having it. Thanks I will try this recipe.
Have to preface that London Ontario is my hometown and I have not seen one of these since shopping at the local A&P store. When I saw the recipe after supper tonight I just knew I had to try it. Thank you. I'm sure its going to taste great and our home now(Halifax) smells wonderful. Thank you for allowing us to reminisce.
My mother made these often and I loved them. The recipe came from a Better Homes and Garden -Cookies and Candies published in 1966. The recipes are very similar. Differences are: 2 cups water, 1 3/4 c flour, 1/4 tsp cloves, 1 tsp cinnamon. ( I don't know why the big difference in the water.) We did not make it a double decker bar with icing - but I like that idea. It was baked in a 15 1/2 x 10 1/2 x 1 inch baking pan and dusted with confectioners' sugar. (The recipe does mention icing) They were called Old-Fashioned Raisin Bars. They are thinner than bars made in a 9x13 pan, so I can see that they would be good as a double decker bar. I'll have to try it that way. Thank you for sharing the Spanish Bar Cake.
I remember this growing up with such fond memories. My mom would buy this at Big Bear grocery store in Columbus, Ohio. I will try the recipe and see how close it is to my memory. Thanks !
Just talking about this cake with my Son . I will try the recipe, I really miss this cake , thank you for posting.