When you see this title, what do you think of? “Depression cake” is a recipe for cake without eggs or milk (some recipes don’t use butter either), that came into use during the Great Depression in the United States. The same goes, apparently, for such modern marvels as mock apple pie, vinegar pie, and my personal favorite, water pie. When my husband showed me the video about making water pie, I watched it patiently, waiting for the punchline. Turns out there wasn’t one. Water pie is made by pouring water into a raw pie shell and adding flour, sugar, and butter. We did try it, and it’s a little like eating a glass of sugar water, so I’m trying to think of a way to add flavor without changing the fundamental principle. Maybe add some vinegar? (That’s not as weird and disgusting as it sounds; it adds a bit of tang like you might find in lemon flavor, for when you don’t have any lemons.)

I take issue, however, with continuing to call it “depression cake” in this modern age, because just about any cake can be a depression cake if approached in a certain way. A vicious cycle can unfold: one eats too much cake when depressed, and one is then further depressed for having eaten too much cake. I propose some possible alternative descriptors: Hard Times Cake, Plant-Based Cake, or Make-Do Cake. Maybe Low-Guilt Cake? Be-of-Good-Cheer Cake?

In considering these concepts, I think of my forebears, making do with what they had, using a flour sack for an apron, rifling through the cupboards in search of something to use in making a treat for the kids. Of course, in this age of overindulgence and excess, anybody who wants to make this cake is doing so for one of two reasons: nostalgia, or searching for a delicious treat with fewer calories. Depression-era families should be so lucky.

Obviously, I grew up well after the depression (my parents were born during those years), but I do remember an age of making things and making do. My mother knitted sweaters for us, darned our socks, and sewed our dresses. We traded eggs for milk from a dairy farm down the road. My mother boiled the milk on the stove to pasteurize it, and we skimmed the cream off the top with a spoon. (What an idiot I was—I wouldn’t touch a glass of milk that had even a speck of that marvelous yellowy cream showing on the surface.) My father cut and split firewood from his own land, maintained the well, sheared the sheep, and got up hay with a pitchfork.

But fret not, I didn’t walk uphill both ways to school in the snow, and I got my shoes brand-new from Hofheimer’s. I just love that retro-vibe, and I get a kick out of making things from scratch.