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
Loved Spanish Bar cake. I believe it must hsve had molasses, for the darkness, snd denseness. No nuts. Lots of raisins. Spice. The cake itself was not seeet. The icing however, SWEET !! Csnt wait to try your recipe, and not that it makes a lick of difference, it would have been cut 9 x 3 ... 4 slabs, thus 2 cakes.
Hi!
I am an 80 year old woman who grew up in Baltimore, MD. My Dad was in charge of bakery operations for Acme Supermarkets, originally called American Stores Company. Dad would always bring home a loaf of Supreme bread and a cake or pie. I loved when the cake he brought home was the delicious Spanish bar cake. It was my favorite! It was very dark in color. Acme markets are still in operation in some mid-Atlantic states. Acme was bought by Albertsons probably in the seventies. Don’t know if the existing Acmes still carry Spanish bar cake. Would love to know if they do. I’m living in Highlands, NC now. Will try this recipe and see if it resembles my favorite Acme Spanish bar cake. Joyce Wagner Siegel
Just popped it out of its pan. It is still warm, but couldn’t resist a piece. Delicious! I upped the spices and added a spoon of dark cocoa powder and it is a nice rich color. I won’t bother with the icing as I Liked the plain version.
Hi Barry - so great to see the attention and memories given to the Spanish Bar Cake. Referring to 1 of you commentors - Yes the Spanish bar cake was made with all the broken cookies and cakes that were gleaned from the production runs. I know because I worked In the test kitchen of a large national bakery that was a competitor of A & P in Toronto in the 60s. We worked on recipes until we had a near copy.I have also found similar recipes - one from my Aunt "Boiled Raisin Cake" made with lard and a Newfoundland favourite called Tidewater Annie's Fruit Cake. When I was a kid my Dad used to bring home an original from A & P. I can hardly wait to try your recipe.
Actually there was no standard recipe across the US and Canada. There are many regional variations it seems.
I make this cake and it's just like I remembered when I was little. The frosting is made with cream cheese and confection sugar. I remember my dad buy from A&P and when we couldn't get it there anymore, we got it from the Spanish store. It is an awesome cake!
I remember my mom getting it from A&P, loved it...Do you think maybe Molasses was in it instead of cocoa, just wondering about that..I'll be making it though very soon..Thanks for sharing recipe!!
Thank you!!!!!!! I have been searching for countless years trying to find the elusive Spanish Bar cake in every supermarket I enter. Made this today and honestly it tastes exactly the same as I remember it! Served it to my various family members who have also been looking for this as well and they couldn't believe how close to the A&P version this was! Thank you for bringing back one of my favourite childhood memories! This is definitely going to be a staple!!!
So great to hear Steph. A lot of folks have fallen in love with this recipe. ENJOY!
Such a great recipe
I’m in my 70s and grew up in northern NY, close to Canada. This was a weekly treat for us. We did have an A&P in our town, but then I married & lived in CT, and was still able to buy this cake & there were no A &Ps. 🤷🏻♀️ It was a favorite of my son’s & mine so I have searched for it forever! I just made pumpkin bread & thought of it again, so decided to search for a recipe. THANK YOU for this! I will give it a try. I do think my pumpkin bread actually has a lot of the same flavor, color & moistness. I will give your recipe a try, & will also try adding a ton of raisins to my pumpkin bread recipe to compare. Again, thank you!!
Thank you for such an interesting read! I have been looking for a Spanish Bar recipe to enter into the local county fair scheduled in a couple of weeks. The category is ‘Grandma Favorites’. Hmmm, now I think about it, technically this was my Grandma’s favorite from the store, not necessarily from her baking. But my Mom often baked Spanish Bars during the ‘70’s and ‘80’s from scratch. So I think it is ok! As mentioned by some, I have noticed subtle recipe differences based on region. I love your recipe because you can easily adjust to make it your own if needed- not in my case!. It is perfect! I’m so excited to try your recipe!
Hope it turned out well.
The recipe for Spanish Bar Cake that I got from my Mom in Southwestern Ontario in the mid-nineties uses crushed pineapple and is topped with a cream cheese icing. It made a 10x13 inch cake. It's a much simpler recipe than this one and is moist and delicious. The last time I made this cake was in Ottawa aroung 1997. Still have the recipe. Maybe I'll break it out again.
Thanks for sharing.
I have heard from many people across North America and I can tell you that there was no standard recipe in the A&P stores. It seems there were regional and individual store variations by the dozens.
The cake was delicious! THANK YOU!! A real trip down memory lane, going to A&P to pick up a Jane Parker blueberry pie and a spanish bar cake when I was a kid.
Hi Barry,
I just finished making pumpkin bread which I make from fresh pumpkins steamed and the pulp mashed. After they were done, I thought how much they reminded me of the Spanish Bar cakes I loved from A&P. It was my favorite cake. So, I Googled Spanish Bar Cake and came across your site. I grew up in Queens County in New York, USA. The recipe for your Spanish Bar Cake has pretty much the same spices as my pumpkin bread other than the All Spice. Several of your writers have good points.....I agree that the A&P version was darker in color, so the cocoa may be a good idea. The person from Canada who said there were no nuts may be right. I can't say for sure if A&P had nuts in theirs but since I love nuts, I would put them in when I try your recipe. Upping the spices sounds right to me since my pumpkin bread has full teaspoons of the cinnamon and cloves. Everyone loves my pumpkin bread. Can't wait to try the Spanish Bar Cake for Christmas.
Helen
Enjoyed reading your article and love what you do. I've been searching for the Spanish Bar Cake recipe almost since they haven't been available. As a kid my mother always make her own desserts, but not when it came to A&P Spanish Bar Cake, one came home with her in the weekly brown grocery bag.. I seem to recall a red cupcake like liner around the three unfrosted sides of the cake.
In any event, thank you for the research, interesting article and a promise to give the recipe a try.
While your at it, could you please find a recipe for Starbucks Ginger Loaf?
Merry 2019 Christmas and lots of fun in 2020
Ironic that I was just thinking of those Spanish Bar Cakes I used to get from the A&P in Niagara Falls where I worked weekends as a teenager. I loved it and often took one home to share with my family.
I was going to start a google search looking for a recitation replicate that cake I loved. Don’t think there were any nuts in the cake, just raisins.
Thank you for this. I’ll be making it this weekend.