Some of history’s best recipes have come from simple swaps. Inventive bakers turn to economical substitutions, and the results turn out even better than the original. Today’s home cooks often lean on shortcuts and ingredient swaps in order to prepare the foods they love, even if they don’t have a full complement of necessary ingredients on hand. (Out ofheavy cream? Try half-and-half with butter. Nocornstarch? Sub in some arrowroot instead.) Cooks in the first half of the 20th century were no different. The impact of World War II led torationing of coffee, eggs, flour, sugar, butter, milk, baking soda, oils, and other foods, forcing cooks to look for inventive ways to recreate their favorite dishes.
Resourceful cooks turned to a cost-effective method in those tough times, using the leavening power of bubbly beverages in place ofbaking soda and baking powder. In fact, cakes baked with cola and 7Up became so popular—especially in the Southern states—that drink manufacturers took notice and began publishing recipes that used their beverage as a critical ingredient.
My mother-in-law is from Virginia and she makes a 7Up cake drizzled with a lime juice and sugar frosting that for the longest time I called “the lime cake.” The cake's tender texture takes my breath away every time. As someone who loves the fresh scent of limes more than any other citrus, 7Up cakes are one of my favorite American sweets—and they were born out of scarcity and ingenuity.
The original 7Up was invented in 1929 byCharles Leiper Grigg, but it went by a different name then:Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda. It contained lithium citrate, a mood-stabilizing drug thatis used to treat bipolar disorders and depression. In 1948 lithium was removed from the soft drink after it was banned by the FDA, and the soda’s name was changed to 7Up. But luckily for home bakers, one critical ingredient remained in the soft drink: carbon dioxide.
Why do cakes need leavening agents?
Leaveners give bread and cakes their loft and open crumb structure by producing carbon dioxide, or CO2. Both commercial yeast and sourdough levain help doughs rise through fermentation, converting starches and sugars in wheat flour into alcohol and carbon dioxide. Chemical leavening agents, including baking soda and baking powder, react with water or buttermilk and heat to produce CO2 bubbles. Some cakes, such asgenoise cake, do not use leavening agents but instead get their airiness from whipped eggs. Cakes likeangel food cake anddaffodil cake get their rise by whipping air into egg whites agents and use acids like cream of tartar to stabilize the structure.
How does 7Up work when it’s baked into a cake?
A can of 7Up contains only a handful of ingredients, but most of those ingredients happen to work wonders in a cake. Carbonated water leavens the cake by adding bubbles to the batter. High fructose corn syrup sweetens the cake and promotes browning. Citric acid adds sourness, lowers the pH of the cake batter, and alters the egg and flour protein structures. Potassium citrate acts as a buffer by preventing large changes in pH; it also acts as a preservative to prevent the growth of harmful microbes and the development of off flavors in the drink. Flavoring agents add 7Up’s signature lemon-lime zip. Finally, calcium disodium EDTA is a preservative that helps the drink's flavor last longer (which may help cakes made with it last longer too).
Can soda really make cakes airier?
In order to see what 7Up does to a cake, I baked three cakes usingthis recipe, but with three different liquids: one with 7Up, one with plain carbonated water, and one with still water, all at room temperature. Instead of using a Bundt pan, I baked the cakes in 8-inch round cake pans in order to more accurately measure their height post-baking. I used no additional leavening agents in any of the cakes.
