Whenever society faces a major setback, it seems we have a need to reach into the past for culinary reassurance. We saw it in New York in the aftermath of 9/11, and we’re seeing it now in the wake of the COVID years.

Here at home, while retro savoury dishes like prawn cocktail have inspired twisted, modernised versions, we’ve remained more faithful to the original when it comes to the sweet side of Nostalgia St. And this goes double when it comes to baking.

Searches for baking recipes spiked in 2020 and jumped a further 33 percent in the last year. It isn’t just us. While we fell back in love with pineapple upside-down cake, apple teacake and carrot cake, lemon drizzle cake reignited in the UK. In the US, it was pecan pies, cinnamon buns and, in Canada, Nanaimo bars.

Perhaps the most compelling case for the pre-eminence of retro bakes is the humble self-saucing pudding. It still bamboozles me that my recipe for a chocolate self-saucing pudding remains one of the most downloaded recipes on delicious.com.au.

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There are many theories to why this is occurring. We may be grasping for the reassurance of simpler, more settled times, as offered by rose-tinted views of the past. Maybe we hang on to the past when the pace of change is too fast or too radical?

There’s no doubt these dishes tweak emotional connections to a time of big grandma hugs and Mum singing you lullabies before bed. When our worries were about a spelling test or who we’d take to the dance as opposed to paying the mortgage or how evil sugar was. This is culinary escapism. Or maybe we’re just sugar-fuelled ostriches with our heads in the sand…

Not all of the great ‘nanna desserts’ made a comeback. Bread and butter pudding, jam roly-poly and rice pudding are still largely forgotten. While the Iced Vovo, jelly cheesecake slice and peppermint slice all had their moment, custard tarts and coconut macaroons remain in the vault, waiting to be rediscovered.

One big trend in baking over the last 12 months has been an abiding obsession with lemons, often in nostalgic cakes or baked desserts. On delicious.com.au, searches for lemon recipes increased 25 percent in the last six months, faster than any other ingredient. And so, as all things lemony tend to peak during the run-up to Christmas, an old-school lemon dessert is my pick – and no retro lemon dessert has been getting quite the heat right now on socials as lemonade pie.

Originally from Alabama in the deep south, this pie (in the US sense of the word) is usually made with Cool Whip and frozen lemonade concentrate. That’s really not very delicious., so I’ve cleaned it up with sleeker, easier-to-find ingredients. 

The skimmed milk powder and cream of tartar are there to add stability to the whipped cream (in the latter’s case, a little extra sourness, too). The lemon drizzle is a nod to our friends in the UK!

Find the recipe for the lemonade pie with lemon drizzle pictured above, here.

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