4 days Ago By [email protected] (Jay Wilson)
There's no getting around the fact that the 1970s were a wacky time for food. This was the decade that American cuisine began to morph and stretch at the seams, turning from a simple, humble set of meals to a frankly experimental landscape — and not always in a great way. Alongside foods that soon became favorites we still eat to this day (like Green Goddess dressing and cheese fondue), there were out-there concoctions like frosted sandwich loaves and cheese balls that were, for better or worse, the talking points of every potluck.
Perhaps nowhere was food more inventive than in the dessert space, where a host of sweet treats became beloved by the world, despite how strange some of them were. Some of the best-loved desserts in the 1970s were newly invented in the decade, with items like the Hummingbird cake and the Robert Redford cake (which was also known by a slightly more scandalous name) first being conceived during these fabled years. Other desserts had been thought of long before the '70s, but really took off around this time, with everyday dishes like instant pudding and fancier affairs like baked Alaska being emblematic of the period.
Join us on a trip down memory lane, while we check out these iconic old-school desserts. 1. Hummingbird cake Like so many desserts that have gone on to achieve astounding popularity, the Hummingbird cake was first conceived in the comfort and warmth of a home kitchen.
This cake first came to prominence in February 1978, when a Mrs. L.H.
Wiggins submitted the recipe for it from her home in Greensboro, North Carolina to Southern Living magazine. The popularity of the cake soon caught fire, with people immediately falling in love with its balance of fruity and nutty flavors. Its appeal lasted long after the 1970s finished, too: Over time, it became Southern Living's most searched-for recipe by readers in the South.
The Hummingbird cake combines the familiar and the unexpected. It starts out kinda like a banana cake, with slightly browning chopped bananas combined with flour, sugar, eggs, cinnamon, baking soda, and chopped nuts. However, things take a hard left when chopped pineapples are thrown into the mix.
The addition of pineapples gives the cake a tropical sweetness that stops it from becoming too squidgy and dense. Then, the whole thing is layered together with cream cheese frosting in between each slab of cake, and it's crowned with toasted pecan halves which provide a pleasing crunch. 2.
Baked Alaska Think of 1970s food culture, in all its weirdness and strange extravagance, and you may well think of the baked Alaska. This quintessentially '70s dessert really is emblematic of the decade, despite the fact that it was created long before the years of bell-bottom jeans and Star Wars. It's believed that the baked Alaska was first created back in the 1860s, and was given its distinctive name as a way to mark the Alaska Purchase.
Exactly who invented the baked Alaska is unclear, and throughout the years its origin has been attributed to various different chefs, working in restaurants everywhere from New Orleans to New York. Well, whoever made it must have had a pretty good handle on physics. The baked Alaska relies on its hair-raising ability to cook on its outside, generating a bronzed, crispy meringue exterior, while keeping the ice cream inside chilled and solid.
It's little wonder that these extremities appealed to a '70s crowd who were looking for a little wow factor. It was a mainstay on dessert menus across the country and the world during the 1970s, but nowadays you're more likely to find it on cruise ships or vintage-themed restaurants. 3.
Jell-O cookies Jell-O cookies are about as '70s as desserts come. These squidgy cookies are an undeniably retro affair and harnessed the power of Jell-O, which was a staple of recipes during the decade, with people practically obsessed with molding it into any shape they could think of. In these cookies, though, Jell-O was just one ingredient, sitting alongside more standard additions like flour, butter, and sugar in the cookie batter.
The addition of Jell-O to the cookies did several things. The first was to provide them with a sweet, tart flavor, which made each bite a far fruitier affair than a standard wafer. The second was to dye each cookie a fairly lurid color, producing a dessert that came out in the classic pastel colors that were such a staple of sweet food during the decade.
Finally, the gelatin in the Jell-O powder provided the cookies with an undeniable squishiness and moistness, and while they weren't quite jellied, they definitely had a way-softer texture. Jell-O cookies really took off when the company published an ad promoting their recipe in magazines, but home cooks may well have been making them before the wider public took notice. They're a little harder to find today, but they're always a treat when you do.
4. Robert Redford cake There's no denying that the 1970s was a slightly risqué time in some ways, and that quality extended all the way to the decade's desserts. Want proof? Check out the Robert Redford cake.
This cake's unique name comes, of course, from the actor Robert Redford, who was viewed as a sex symbol during the period. Although this name doesn't quite give away the intention behind calling the cake this, its longer title (the "Better Than Robert Redford" cake) and its alternative name (the "Better Than Sex" cake) both do. Essentially, this cake was designed to be the ultimate in appeal and desire, even more so than the hunkiest actor on the block.
We can see why the latter two names didn't quite catch on, given that this was clearly a sweet treat that would appeal to both adults and kids alike, thanks to its ultra-sugary flavors. The Robert Redford cake is most commonly made by pouring sweetened condensed milk over a premade chocolate cake, and then scooping on caramel ice cream. The cake is then popped in the fridge for things to set, before being covered in whipped cream and crushed Heath bars.
Other forms of the cake have existed, with some made from a yellow cake mix and baked from scratch, but it's the crunchy, caramel-inflected version that's seen the most. 5. Watergate cake Don't you just love it when food is named after a political scandal? No? Yeah, we don't blame you on that one — call us old-fashioned, but we usually prefer that food tastes good, instead of having a government-associated title.
However, for the folks out there who do like their pudding with a side of politics, the Watergate cake is where it's at. The Watergate cake got its name in 1972, shortly after the Watergate scandal that led to the downfall of Richard Nixon. As for why it gained this infamous moniker, it's not because it was served to Nixon during the affair, or looked anything like the Watergate hotel.
Nope: Apparently, it's because the cake contains a bunch of nuts, under a distracting layer of bright, pleasing icing. The inside holds the truth, and the outside is what Nixon wanted us to see. Get it? Interestingly, the Watergate cake had been around for a while before its namesake scandal had even taken place.
This cake (which is made with a yellow or white cake mix combined with pistachio pudding, which is then covered in chopped pecans and coconut flakes) has existed in various forms since the 1950s. When the Watergate story broke, though, the cake was quickly refashioned, and a legend was born. 6.
Instant pudding Few desserts are as commonly associated with the 1970s as instant pudding. During this decade, it felt like every household in America had a couple of sachets in their pantries, ready to whip up at a moment's notice when someone in the family wanted something sweet. Instant pudding offered families a cost-effective way to make dessert, and was (and is) as good on its own as it was an ingredient in other dishes.
Plus, its wide variety of flavors was a real selling point, with everything from vanilla to pistachio and lemon instant pudding available for a rock-bottom price. Although instant pudding and the 1970s go hand-in-hand, it was actually invented way before then. Instant pudding was first sold in the United States by My-T-Fine back in 1918.
In 1936, just before the eve of the Second World War, Jell-O started making its own instant pudding product, and this quickly became the dominant version. Today, instant pudding may seem a little bit more old-fashioned, but it still hits the spot when you're in a rush. 7.
7-Up cake The 1970s was a time when people really loved to put just anything in their desserts — and this next one is proof of that. We give you the 7-Up cake, and we're gonna guess that you can figure out what the star ingredient was here. 7-Up cake was actually a pretty simple concoction, with the cake combining eggs, flour, butter, and sugar, with a relatively small amount of citrusy soda and some lemon extract.
The whole thing was baked in a Bundt or a tube pan, and then finished with a dusting of powdered sugar. Although it was short on ingredients, we're willing to bet that this cake packed a serious punch, and the added sugar put it at risk of tipping over into tooth-aching territory. Having said this, the carbonated 7-Up provides a light effervescence that cuts through the insistent sugariness and citrusy notes.
Because 7-Up was so simple to make, it was a staple of bake sales and school cakewalks. It's since fallen out of fashion a little, but we can see how it was once a big deal. 8.
Chocolate fondue The practice of dipping delicious things into even more delicious things is not to be underestimated, and in the 1970s, people were going wild for it. Not only was this the decade that cheese fondue really took off in the U.S.
, but it was also the time that people started to look to their after-dinner treat to do the same thing. Lo, the chocolate fondue took flight. Chocolate fondue was a mainstay of the '70s, and its popularity has persisted ever since – although nowadays, you're arguably more likely to find it in fountain form, instead of in a big vat at the center of the table.
Perhaps chocolate fondue's popularity can be put down to its simplicity. Making chocolate fondue was easy : High-percentage dark chocolate is melted with a small amount of heavy cream in a double boiler, before being transferred to a fondue pot. Chefs were also fond of putting a dash of Grand Marnier in the chocolate mix, to give it an orange-inflected note.
Chocolate fondue would then be served with whatever people had to hand to dip, with strawberries, marshmallows, and angel food cake cubes being common. It was a communal dessert featuring flavors everyone loved; no wonder it was so popular. 9.
Butterscotch tart The 1970s wasn't just a bold time for desserts in the U.S. Over in the United Kingdom, home cooks and chefs alike were also starting to jazz up their flavors and look beyond the norm.
Butterscotch tart is a good example of this, with this dessert combining the familiar and the slightly more interesting. Butterscotch tart was a mainstay of school dinners (which is used here to refer to the lunchtime meal), and its popularity was largely down to how easy it was for the dinner ladies in the cafeteria to make. Butterscotch tart starts with a simple base made from flour, margarine, and sugar, which is usually pressed into a fairly large tray.
After being baked, a butterscotch filling made from brown sugar, milk, butter, and a little bit of flour was poured in and left to set. The result was a tart that could be sliced into dozens of rectangles for a bunch of hungry kids, and one that had super-accessible flavors that still had a slightly caramelized, nutty, and mature twist. In the 1970s, butterscotch tart was typically served with a glug of lurid-yellow, slightly lumpy custard.
It's just as good today as it was then. 10. Harvey Wallbanger cake Anyone who knows their cocktails will be aware that the Harvey Wallbanger is a pretty retro affair.
This drink combines vodka, orange juice, and Galliano liqueur for a sweet, citrusy, ever-so-slightly spicy beverage. If you're thinking: "Hey, those flavors sound like they'd be good in cake form," then we've got a treat for you — they do! Well, they did in the 1970s, at least. The Harvey Wallbanger cake began to appear in the 1970s, around the same time that the cocktail itself was at peak popularity.
Early mentions in advertisements for frypans indicate that this was, in its first form, a flat loaf cake that combined yellow cake mix with the cocktail's ingredients, with vanilla pudding powder thrown in for good measure. The cake was then topped with a gooey glaze for an extra burst of sweetness. By the mid-70s the cake was a real hit, with folks falling in love with its moistness and surprising subtlety.
Sadly, it started to wane in its appeal when the cocktail itself started to go out of fashion, but we'd bet that it still hits the spot just as well today. 11. Rice pudding Ah, rice pudding.
There's just nothing quite like it. Nowadays, rice pudding is looked on with a lot of cynicism: A dessert that combines relentless starchiness with a lumpy texture, and not quite enough sweetness to distract from the grains themselves? No thanks. However, back in the 1970s, it was kinda a big deal, with the dessert common both in the comfort of people's homes and in diners across the country.
Rice pudding was actually invented way before the 1970s, and it was popular before then too. The dessert was actually invented thousands of years ago , but in the U.S.
, it apparently started appearing on diner menus in the 1920s. It fitted in perfectly with the standard cuisine in these roadside establishments, with a homely feel that slotted right in next to meatloaf, steak, and mashed potatoes. It was also easy enough to make from scratch in big batches and keep warm until people drifted in off the highway.
By the 1970s it was pretty much everywhere, although it was usually reserved to people's homes and more down-to-earth establishments instead of higher-end restaurants. You'll still find rice pudding in some more old-school places today. 12.
Tequila Sunrise poke cake The 1970s was a decade when people loved to turn cocktails into cakes. It happened with the Harvey Wallbanger, and it happened with the Tequila Sunrise . We've gotta admit, the concept of a cake that combines tequila and orange juice doesn't exactly thrill us, but back in the '70s, it was all the rage, around the time that the cocktail itself became super popular.
This cake was a pretty processed affair, made by combining boxed cake mix with orange-flavored gelatin, before throwing in tequila, water, eggs, and oil. It was then finished off with tubbed whipped topping for a further burst of sugar. Before the topping was spread onto the cake, though, there was one more step.
Whoever was making the cake would poke it with a toothpick, and then pour over grenadine. This grenadine would seep into the cake, giving its interior a two-tone appearance that somewhat resembled the orange-and-red look of the Tequila Sunrise cocktail. We've gotta admit that this kinda made it a visual spectacle, but we can also see how this cake's vintage vibe meant it was left in the history books.
13. Jell-O Pudding Pops While a lot of the biggest desserts in the 1970s were homemade creations, the appeal of a store-bought sweet treat was still strong during the decade. Jell-O Pudding Pops were a particular favorite back then, for adults and kids alike, thanks to their combo of convenience and a trusted brand name.
Each Jell-O Pudding Pop was a creamy, rich delight, with a noticeably fuller taste than your classic popsicle (and with none of the jelly-like texture you might expect from the name). To say that these pops were popular would be an understatement: At the height of their powers, they were selling in massive amounts, with hundreds of millions of dollars worth of pudding pops changing hands each year. Sadly, though, the Jell-O Pudding Pop wasn't destined to last forever.
By 2004, the pops had been removed from shelves, with Jell-O halting production. The reason why Jell-O Pudding Pops were discontinued was simple: Jell-O just wasn't making enough money out of them, and the dessert proved over time to be not as cost-effective as the company had likely hoped. 14.
Mississippi Mud Pie Some desserts stand the test of time, and it's fair to say that Mississippi Mud Pie is one of them. Although this after-dinner treat does have a distinctly retro feel, you'll still find it in more down-to-earth eateries and diners, both in its namesake state and across the country. It was back in the 1970s, though, that the Mississippi Mud Pie came into being for the first time.
Exactly how it was invented is slightly unclear, although some folks see it as a more modern version of the previously popular Mississippi Mud Cake, a similar dessert that had risen to prominence after World War II. However, it was first conceived, though, pretty soon after Mississippi Mud Pie started to take flight. Because this dessert was so easy to make at home, countless people developed their own recipes and interpretations of its deep, rich flavors.
At its core, though, the Mississippi Mud Pie is generally pretty recognizable: Layers of brownie-like filling, chocolate cream or custard, and a marshmallow topping sit in a delicious, biscuit base. Excuse us while we go and whip one up right now..
