Peppermint Stick Candy Layer Cake

The final Christmas Peppermint Party recipe...adapted for Valentine's

With holidays, unexpected snow days, and family visiting from out of town, it has been a whirlwind of things other than working on this final recipe. Haha! Today, things were finally back to their regular schedule so I whipped up a modified version of the final recipe for Peppermint Stick Candy Layer Cake.

First of all, I have no reason to make a layer cake right now, especially with some very yummy leftover cherry cheesecake sitting in my fridge. So I opted for the versatile and more-easily-stored cupcake form.

Second, Christmas is definitely over, so I thought I’d shift things ahead to making these Valentine’s Day friendly. I didn’t do much except for using heart cupcake liners and red pearl sprinkles. (My creative juices are functioning on basics right now. My new semester starts on Monday which is really looming. I was enjoying homework-free time SO much! lol)

Other than that, I pretty much stuck to the recipe which is right here:

From Lily Wallace’s New American Cook Book, 1945

Okay, I take that back. I did not bother with the egg whites and just whisked a large, whole egg into the milk. You might already know this about me, but I don’t have a lot of patience for whipped egg whites where they’re not wanted.

What’s interesting about this recipe is that there is no peppermint extract in sight. The only peppermint flavor comes from crushed peppermint sticks (aka candy canes in my case.) The other interesting thing is that the recipe has you sprinkle finely crushed peppermint sticks over the cake batter before baking. And then after frosting, you use the larger pieces to decorate the cake. This makes for a very light peppermint flavor, which is quite nice!

NOTE: I do have to offer a word of warning. Candy canes will melt into your frosting after a day or two, so if you use this method of decorating, make sure the cake will be consumed within a day.

The final result was pretty delicious! I made a simple buttercream which paired nicely. I do have to say that butter would taste better in the cake batter than shortening. Other than that, it’s a nice, basic, white cake which you can adapt to whatever occasion you need.

Thanks for following along on this wartime peppermint adventure! I hope you’ve found a recipe or two you might like to try.

I wanted to give a shout out to Blossom Paper Art on Etsy which is where I found the adorable vintage candy cane clip art I used in this series.

If there are any wartime recipe themes you’d like to see me delve into, please let me know. In the past I’ve explored banana, maple, bread, Asian, autumn and Christmas recipes. There is a wealth of amazing wartime recipe goodness that has yet to be discovered!