When I started hearing stories about shortages of baking staples like flour and yeast due to high demand, I couldn’t help thinking about all of the WWII rationing recipes I’ve read as part of my research. Rationing seriously restricted the ability of people in Britain to get access to certain basic ingredients like white flour, butter, and sugar.

The Stork Margarine Cookery Service’s excellent set of pamphlets has an entire group of recipes meant to satisfy your sweet tooth on rations. It does begin with an explanation of making dripping, so be warned that it might not be the heart-healthiest group of recipes in the world.

Enjoy these sweet treats!

Two people’s weekly ration for milk, sugar, butter, bacon, cheese, and chocolate in 1943. (Image courtesy of the Imperial War Museum.)

Ginger Fruit Cake

12 oz self-rising flour

3 reconstituted dried eggs

2 tblsp jam

4oz prunes, weighed before stoning

2-3 oz dripping, cooked fat, or margarine

2 heaped tsps ground ginger

1 heaped tsp Mixed spice

½ bicarbonate of soda

½ tsp salt

¼ pint water

Sieve the flour, salt, ginger, space into a bowl. Stone and chop prunes, and put into a saucepan with the fat, jam, and water. Bring to a boil and simmer for 3 minutes. Cool, make a well in the flour. Pour in. Dissolve the bicarbonate of soda in the reconstituted egg. Add the flour, mix quickly, put into a cake tin lined with greasepaper and brushed with melted fat, and bake for 1 ¼ hours in a moderately hot oven.

Oatmeal Scones

4 oz oatmeal

4 oz self-raising flour

1 oz dripping, cooking fat, or margarine

¼ tsp salt

Water to mix

Sieve the flour and salt together. Add the oatmeal. Rub in the fat and mix to a fairly soft doub with about 1 pint of cold water. On a floured board, knead and roll out to ¼ inch thick and cut into small shapes. Place on a greased baking sheet and bake for 25 minutes in a hot oven.