The Retro Dessert Redditors Are Calling “10/10” and “Delicious!”

Even though I find most of the recipes I use online, I have a special place in my heart for those old-timey handwritten recipe cards. My mom and stepmom always kept a box full of them, written in their own loopy cursive or, better yet, their mothers’ handwriting.

Those were the recipes I knew were the most special, and as a kid first learning to cook, I’d pull one out and beg to make it with them. Nowadays, I have the next best thing—the Reddit subthread r/Old_Recipes. It’s like a giant box of other people’s treasured recipes, and recently I found one that I’ll be putting into regular rotation: Omaha Cake.

Originally shared by Redditor u/classy_corpse in 2019, the recipe is for a quickbread-style cake, made from sugar, eggs, oil, flour, and baking powder, plus a can of pie filling.

In response to a comment from another Redditor who tried the cake, the original poster said, “It’s an incredibly simple recipe with a great home-style taste. The kind that reminds you of coming home from school and finding your mom has made a fresh tray of cookies still warm from the oven. Takes you back to simpler times when you didn’t worry about the world around you.”

How I Made the Retro Omaha Cake

Omaha cake is, indeed, a simple recipe. There’s no creaming of butter and sugar, so there’s no need for a stand mixer or even a handheld mixer. Instead, you combine the cake ingredients in a bowl and then pour half into a greased 9×13-inch baking pan, add a can of your choice of pie filling, and cover that with the rest of the cake batter.

The original recipe doesn’t specify what kind (or quantity) of pie filling to use. It just says, “peach, apple, cherry” in parentheses. I looked up pie filling online to get an idea of what a standard can size is, and I landed on 21 ounces.

I don’t keep pie filling on hand, but I always have preserves, and in this case, I had a jar of homemade mulberry preserves that I was eager to use, so I turned that into pie filling by adding one tablespoon of cornstarch and 1/4 cup of water. It worked beautifully, adding a nice dark, wine-like berry flavor to the cake and ensuring a moist, delicious slice.

The cake is baked at 350°F for 30 to 40 minutes. When it comes out of the oven, the card says, “Drizzle thin powdered sugar frosting over warm cake.” No instructions were given for the frosting, so I winged it, combining two cups of powdered sugar with four tablespoons of milk until I had a thin, pourable icing.

When the cake was completely baked, I pulled it from the oven and used a spoon to drizzle icing on top. (I only needed about half of the icing.) The cake was moist yet fluffy, with a layer of sweet fruity goodness in the middle.

My Tips for Making This Omaha Cake

• Use cooking spray on the cake pan before adding the batter and pie filling to ensure easy removal of the cake from the pan.
• Combine the sugar, eggs, and oil and mix thoroughly. In a separate bowl, whisk to combine the flour, salt, and baking powder. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until just combined.
• Check the cake for doneness at 30 minutes by inserting a toothpick into the center. Adjust time as necessary in five-minute increments. (My cake needed 40 minutes.)
• Get creative with the pie filling. You can use any store-bought pie filling you like, or you can make your own from scratch. You can even turn preserves into pie filling by adding a little water and cornstarch until you get the desired consistency.
• Add a little lemon or lime juice to the thin powdered sugar icing. Swap out one tablespoon of milk for a tablespoon of juice to add a bright, citrus flavor.