
Grandma’s Old-Fashioned Christmas Candy Cake
Old-Fashioned Version
- 2 cups sifted flour
- 3 tsp. baking powder
- ¼ tsp. salt
- 1 cup sugar
- ½ cup lard (shortening)
- 3 eggs, separated. Put egg whites in the refrigerator.
- ¾ cup milk
- 1 tsp. vanilla
Sift flour, baking powder and salt three times. Work shortening with spoon until fluffy. Add sugar gradually. Continue to work with spoon until mixture is light. Beat egg yolks with a fork until thick. Add to sugar mixture. Add flour gradually, alternating with milk, beating each time until thoroughly mixed. Stir in vanilla. Bake in two greased and floured 8” round pans. Bake at 375° for 25 minutes* or until a matchstick** stuck in the middle of the cake comes out clean.
Cool. Remove from pans. Spread meringue between layers, on the sides and on top of the cake. Sprinkle crushed candy on top and sides. Put in stove and watch it. Take out when candy starts to melt. It won’t take long! Remove from stove and cool. To cut cake, put tip of knife in the center of the cake and tap hand to “break through” light crust of candy on top.
* Grandma Woods baked this cake in unreliable wood-burning cook stoves. She had to watch it closely or it would burn, sometimes on just one side.
** or you can use a toothpick or broom straw (very old-fashioned!).
Meringue (Frosting)
- 4 egg whites (add one egg to the three whites left over from making the cake)
- 3 Tbls. Sugar
- 1 tsp. vanilla
Beat egg whites until frothy. Add vanilla. Add sugar a tablespoon at a time. Beat until stiff. Spread inside layers and over the sides and top of cake.
Crushed Candy Topping
Crush with a hammer inside a dishtowel:
- 1 large peppermint stick
- About a cup of ribbon Christmas candy (preferred) or any type of hard candy.

Newer Version of Grandma’s Christmas Candy Cake
New Version
Use any from-scratch or packaged yellow, white or spice cake recipe. Spice cake is extra delicious in this recipe. Bake in two 8” round pans. Cool. Spread New Version Meringue Topping between layers and on outside of cake. Sprinkle crushed candy on top and sides.
Put under broiler and watch constantly until candy begins to melt. If you leave it too long, you could mess up the Meringue Frosting. Remove from oven and cool. To cut, put tip of knife in the center of cake and tap hand to “break through” light crust of candy on top.
Meringue Frosting (new version)
This meringue “frosting” is a delicious, marshmallow-type topping. You can pile it high on pies or on this Christmas Cake. It’s hard not to sneak a few tablespoons for yourself.
- 1-1/2 cups sugar
- 6 egg whites
- 1 tsp. vanilla
Put sugar, egg whites and vanilla in a double boiler. Cook over simmering water, whipping constantly for 3 or 4 minutes or until mixture reaches 140° on a candy thermometer. Remove from heat and pour into a large bowl. Beat at high speed for 10 minutes or until thick and spreadable. This meringue tastes a lot like creamy marshmallows. The thin crust of melted candy on top is an unexpected treat. Delicious!
Read how this cake put face-cracking smiles on the faces of a bunch of kids in the Christmas of 1933! Christmas in a Sock
Jodi Lea Stewart is the author of a contemporary trilogy set in the Navajo Nation, as well as two historical adventure-mysteries. More are on the way!
Trouble sneaks in one Oklahoma afternoon in 1934 like an oily twister. A beloved neighbor is murdered, and a single piece of evidence sends the sheriff to arrest a Black man that Biddy, a sharecropper’s daughter, knows is innocent. Hauntingly terrifying sounds seeping from the woods lead Biddy into even deeper mysteries and despair and finally into the shocking truths of that fateful summer.
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A teen and her mother escaping an abusive husband tumble into the epicenter of crime peddlers invading Arizona and Nevada in the 1950s. Stranded hundreds of miles from their planned destination of Las Vegas, they land in a dusty town full of ghosts and tales, treachery and corruption. Avoiding disaster is tricky, especially as it leads Kat into a fevered quest for things as simple as home and trust. Danger lurks everywhere, leading her to wonder if she and her mother really did take The Accidental Road of life, or if it’s the exact right road to all they ever hoped for.
Jodi Lea Stewart was born in Texas to an “Okie” mom and a Texan dad. Her younger years were spent in Texas and Oklahoma; hence, she knows all about biscuits and gravy, blackberry picking, chiggers, and snipe hunting. At the age of eight, she moved to a large cattle ranch in the White Mountains of Arizona. Later, she left her studies at the University of Arizona in Tucson to move to San Francisco, where she learned about peace, love, and exactly what she DIDN’T want to do with her life. Since then, Jodi graduated summa cum laude with a BS in Business Management, raised three children, worked as an electro-mechanical drafter, penned humor columns for a college periodical, wrote regional Western articles, and served as managing editor of a Fortune 500 corporate newsletter. She currently resides in Arizona with her husband, her delightful 90+year-old mother, a crazy Standard poodle named Jazz, a rescue cat, and numerous gigantic, bossy houseplants.
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Gregg Booton
Thank you, Gregg! This is a blog very close to my heart (for obvious reasons). If you like to bake, you might want to give the cake recipe a try. I suggest using the updated Meringue for the icing. When you pass your fork through that light candy crust into the creamy-sweet meringue, you’ll want to slap your daddy (as they say in the country)! Take it to any gathering and get ready for a clamor of recipe requests. Talk to you soon…
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I would love you to bookmark my website, Robert! And sign up on my Blog page to receive notices of new blogs, recipes, quotes, Navajo vocabulary words and more. New post and recipe are up now. Come back and see me soon.