Retro 1950s Desserts We Want Back

The 1950s weren't just the golden age of television but a golden age for dessert, too. The decade had just started when the bundt pan was invented and "Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book" was released. By 1951, Betty Crocker, Duncan Hines, and Pillsbury were all manufacturing cake mixes. Newspapers were filled with recipes, ranging from the simple to elaborate. Magazines like "Better Homes and Gardens" circulated to millions of readers. Glossy covers featured beautiful desserts, while the inside pages held ads for every type of Jell-O mix imaginable.

Sadly, as the kitchen timer ticked on, poodle skirts weren't the only things left behind. After the 1950s came to a close, we also left a decade's worth of delicious desserts. Some of these dishes may seem a little strange at first. For example, bakers of the 1950s put tomato soup in a cake and ice cream in an oven. But as it turns out, unconventional methods often lead to tasty results. Spoiler alert: Tomato soup cake gives carrot cake a run for its money.

So, it's time to grab the bundt pan, dust off a Jell-O mold, and check for a fire extinguisher nearby — whether it's a kitchen torch for Baked Alaska or a flambé for Bananas Foster, these classic desserts of the 1950s are ready to ignite your sweet tooth.

In 1952, Pillsbury introduced its angel food cake mix. The only requirement was to add water, which meant no more wrestling with egg whites and no leftover yolks. But Betty Crocker wasn't about to let Pillsbury hog the halo and soon came out with its own angel food cake mix. A 1954 advertisement in Life promised that the brand's new mix would "save you time, work and the task of following recipes." Perhaps slightly insulting — but hey, at least there's cake.

The real fun came when savvy advertisers realized that angel food cake is essentially an edible blank canvas. The more creative variations they could dream up, the more boxes they could sell. Magazine pages overflowed with angel food innovations, including the delicious cherry version. Betty Crocker suggested a simple twist — folding half a cup of chopped, well-drained maraschino cherries into the batter. That's it. Suddenly, your fluffy cloud cake had a fruity flair with barely any extra effort required. By the late 1950s, Pillsbury had leaned into the trend and released a dedicated cherry angel food mix. It included cherry crystals that transformed the dessert into a light pink beauty of a dessert.

Today, regular angel food cake mixes are easy to find, but the cherry variety has vanished. Your best bet is the fold-in-the-cherries method — either into a mix or a made-from-scratch angel food cake. Either way, just be sure to grab a slice before that impossibly light cake floats away.

Here's the first rule of Tomato Soup Cake Club — don't mention the "T" word. Call it mystery spice cake or carrot's cousin cake — anything really — and your guests will love it. They'll swear it's the moistest gingerbread or carrot cake they've ever had, even though there's no carrot, ginger, or molasses in sight. There is, however, a can of tomato soup in each cake. Not that anybody can tell, as, once baked, the tomato flavor nearly disappears. Tomato soup cake is really a spice cake in disguise, often studded with raisins and nuts.

The recipe dates back to at least the 1920s. It became a handy canned shortcut for moist cake during the Great Depression. But even as times changed, the cake continued to bake through the 1950s — especially as Campbell's continued to push the cake through advertisements and cookbooks. A 1950 ad for Campbell's soup even claimed that each can was one of the most useful things you could find in the kitchen, due in part to its cake-friendly nature.

Tomato soup cake has seen many variations over the years. One of the easiest versions for today keeps things delightfully simple: mix a box of spice cake mix with a can of Campbell's Condensed Tomato Soup, water, and eggs. Bake for about 25 minutes, and, once cooled, slather it with cream cheese frosting to put carrot cake to shame.

If chocolate mousse and meringue fell in love at a 1950s sock hop, the result would be chocolate chiffon pie. This dreamy dessert is silkier than the voice of the best crooner and fluffier than the most ambitious poodle skirt ever conceived.

The texture comes from folding whipped egg whites into a base made of melted chocolate, sugar, and just enough gelatin to hold it all together. Some recipes sneak in a dash of strong coffee or espresso powder — not to turn it into a mocha dessert, but to deepen the flavor and make the chocolate taste even more chocolatey.

Traditionally, chocolate chiffon pie chills out in a pastry shell or a classic graham cracker crust, but you'll also find recipes with tasty alternatives, including a gingersnap crumb crust or a vanilla wafer pie shell. It all gets topped off with plenty of whipped cream. Poodle skirts are optional, but the whipped cream is non-negotiable.

Along the California coast in the 1950s, Irons' Cottage by the Sea hosted weddings and dinner parties with oceanside views. If you were lucky enough to dine there, you'd enjoy double-decker appetizers and platters overflowing with salad before potentially wrapping up your meal with a slice of the restaurant's signature poppy seed torte.

The specialty dessert layered poppy seed cakes with a vanilla cream filling and chopped walnuts. Every bite was a symphony of textures — the soft cake, the crispy poppy seeds, the silky filling, and the crunchy nuts. At Irons' Cottage by the Sea, the torte was finished off with a dusting of powdered sugar stenciled into a pretty flower design. Over the years, creative bakers experimented with other toppings, such as a sugary glaze, whipped cream, and even canned cherry pie filling. 

Today, poppy seeds are still loafing around in muffins and cakes, but their glamorous torte phase has drifted out to sea. Personally, we think it's time to plant the seed for this torte's triumphant return.

If the 1950s had hosted a dessert beauty pageant, the colorful crown jewel cake would have been a strong contender to take the crown. Sometimes known as broken glass cake or stained glass cake, this dessert gets its name from its stunning, mosaic-like appearance.

The process begins with cubes of brightly colored Jell-O. While a recipe featured in Life in the 1950s called for lime, black cherry, and raspberry, these were — and still are — customizable depending on your personal preference. Each flavor is prepped in its own dish, chilled, and then cut into gem-like cubes. These colorful pieces are then suspended in a dreamy, creamy filling made by dissolving strawberry Jell-O in hot pineapple juice, letting it cool, and folding it into whipped cream. The whole gorgeous concoction gets poured into a pie plate lined with ladyfingers. Once chilled and set, the result is a sparkly, jiggly masterpiece that looks like an edible art installation.

Jell-O fans have riffed on the theme for decades, using bundt pans for extra flair, trading pineapple juice for plain water, swapping ladyfingers for a graham cracker crust, or going full minimalist with no crust at all. Color combos are endless, such as red and green for Christmas or team colors for game day. With its customizable flair and retro charm, it's time for crown jewel cake to reclaim its throne and jiggle its way back to the dessert table.

Baked Alaska is the dessert with its own micro-climate — warm on the outside and cold on the inside. At its core, baked Alaska layers a base of cake, a generous helping of ice cream (often with multiple flavors), and a thick coat of meringue. The whole thing gets blasted in a blazing oven or greeted by a kitchen torch. The meringue gets nice and toasty while acting like a thermal blanket, so your ice cream stays nice and cool, even under all that heat.

Mid-century magazines and cookbooks couldn't get enough of this culinary magic trick. Recipes and ideas popped up everywhere— adorable mini versions made in molds for individual servings, brownie-based Alaska topped with coffee fluff and chocolate shavings, and seasonal spins like pumpkin Alaska. Nothing says festive quite like setting dessert on fire in front of the in-laws! Baked Alaska showed up in everything from articles about what to do with extra egg whites to advertisements for meringue mix.

Baked Alaska is as versatile as it is showy. Go for a strawberry shortcake version with sponge cake and strawberry ice cream. Create a chocolate lover's dream with devil's food cake and chocolate ice cream. Or enjoy an easy mint baked Alaska with mint ice cream on an Oreo cookie base. Whatever combo you choose, grab that kitchen torch and keep the flame alive — baked Alaska is way too cool (and too hot) to stay in the deep freeze of nostalgia.

Lemon chiffon pie is like the sunshine of the dessert world — bright, light, and guaranteed to lift your mood. With a mousse-like filling made from gelatin and whipped egg whites, it's creamier and airier than lemon meringue. Set in a prebaked pie shell and topped with whipped cream, it's the kind of refreshing dessert that works whether you're finishing a fancy meal or just polishing off a weeknight meatloaf.

Mid-century advertisers were drawn en masse to the shiny allure of lemon chiffon pie. Sunkist promoted fluffy chiffon pie recipes (but only if you used Sunkist's fresh lemons, of course). Carnation pitched its evaporated milk with lemon pie recipes. Even the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) got in on the chiffon craze with a honey recipe booklet that featured a lemon chiffon pie sweetened with ¾ cup of honey. The USDA's involvement proves lemon chiffon pie really was serious business.

By the late 1950s, General Foods introduced Jell-O Chiffon Pie Filling, promising a quick and easy pie filling in mere minutes. Just add water, sugar, and beat. "Serve that most important man in your life Lemon Chiffon pie topped with whipped cream and bananas," it said in a Life advertisement. (We'll assume the important man is whoever does the dishes afterward.) Sadly, Jell-O Chiffon Pie Filling no longer exists, but that's no reason for lemon chiffon pie to sunset into oblivion.

Long before Push Pop candy, New York kids in the 1950s were enjoying Charlotte Russe. While its fancy European namesake involved layers of mousse and ladyfingers, the street-style Charlotte Russe was delightfully no-frills.

Sold in bakeries and candy shops, this version came in a simple cardboard cylinder packed with sponge cake, a skyscraper of whipped cream, and usually one lone maraschino cherry (and maybe a confetti of sprinkles or a bit of fruit). A cardboard plunger let you push up the treat as you ate. Charlotte Russe celebrated pure, uncomplicated joy — soft cake, fluffy cream, a bit of playfulness, and full portability — all for no more than a nickel.

Today, in an era hungry for grab-and-go convenience, this simple treat feels ripe for revival. To recreate the dessert at home, just tuck a slice of sponge cake into a paper cup, top it with a tall swirl of sweetened whipped cream, and finish it off with a maraschino cherry. If you want to make these ahead so they're chilled and ready to go, make a stabilized whipped cream to hold that signature swirl overnight. It's time to give Charlotte Russe the push it needs to rise again.

In the 1950s, no dinner party, church social, or backyard barbecue was complete without a jiggly, pastel-hued fruit mold on the dessert table. Peach Bavarian was one of the prettiest of the bunch. Light, creamy, and refreshingly peachy, this mid-century favorite transformed a can of peaches into a dessert that looked far fancier than it really was.

The classic recipe starts with canned peach slices, along with their syrup, a little sugar, lemon juice, and plain gelatin. The peaches get crushed and warmed with the syrup mixture, while the gelatin, softened in lemon juice, works its magic to hold everything together. Once cooled, whipped cream is folded in, creating a mousse-like filling with just the right amount of fluff. For the grand presentation, the mixture is poured into a mold lined with ladyfingers, and then left to chill and set.

When you unmold it (a brief prayer and a hot-water dunk help), the cake emerges as a beautiful peachy crown. For final touches, drape on extra peach slices, pop a cherry or two in the center, or maybe add a sprig of mint if you're feeling botanical. One bite, and you're reminded why canned fruit sales skyrocketed back then. Pantry pragmatism plus whipped-cream optimism equaled something peachy keen. Sure, life is not all peaches and cream, but dessert still can be.

The 1950s often called on a secret weapon for hot summer nights — the icebox cake. It was simple, stylish, and cool (literally). Basically, cookies or cake with whipped cream or pudding are chilled in the fridge until dessert o'clock. No oven mitts, no sweat.

Early versions featured ladyfingers or sponge cake, but once packaged cookies hit their stride, everything changed. A Nabisco cookbook published in 1938 included an ice box recipe using Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafers. Later, Nabisco printed the recipe right on the wafer package. By the 1950s, Nabisco wafers practically became synonymous with icebox cake. The process was simple and fun. All you had to do was make cookie-and-cream sandwiches, stack them in a tower, turn the tower on its side, and cover the whole thing in more whipped cream. After a few hours in the fridge, the crunchy wafers transformed into a moist, cake-like texture that sliced into a striking zebra pattern.

In 2023, Nabisco broke the hearts of nostalgic bakers everywhere by discontinuing its Famous Chocolate Wafers. But fear not — icebox cake can still make a comeback. You might be able to find other chocolate wafers, or you can swap in any crisp cookie — Oreos, thin chocolate chip, graham crackers, or good ol' Nilla Wafers will all work. And that's just the base. Have fun with icebox cake's infinite potential. Flavor your whipped cream, toss in a few nuts, or add some berries, like this easy three-ingredient strawberry icebox cake. Let's not ice out this delicious dessert — it's long overdue for a warm welcome back.

It's New Orleans, 1951. Brennan's Restaurant is gearing up to host Richard Foster, head of the New Orleans Crime Commission. Restaurateur extraordinaire Ella Brennan needs a show-stopping dessert. Two influences ignite her creativity — her mom's caramelized breakfast bananas and the fiery success of a rival restaurant's torch-happy baked Alaska. And so, the idea of using flames and bananas to make a dessert is born.

Bananas foster sizzles with bananas sautéed in butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, banana liqueur, and rum. Then comes the grand finale — the flambé. The alcohol is ignited, creating a dramatic burst of flames that caramelize the sugars. Once the pyrotechnics die down, the warm, gooey bananas are spooned over vanilla ice cream.

To this day, Brennan's still serves what it appropriately calls its World Famous Bananas Foster. But this dessert deserves to show off far beyond the French Quarter. The dish is particularly fun for home chefs because it combines simple ingredients with an exciting cooking technique and yields delicious results. So go forth and try a bananas foster recipe — just exercise caution when working with an open flame (keep hair and sleeves back, keep a lid nearby, and have a fire extinguisher close, just in case).

For a better part of the 1950s, Dwight D. Eisenhower was running the country. Back at the White House, first lady Mamie Eisenhower was quietly running the dessert game with her famous fudge. Mamie grew up in a house where the cook didn't let her in the kitchen, with a Life interview from 1952 revealing that she "had never learned to cook and could produce nothing but fudge and mayonnaise" (talk about a balanced diet). Luckily, it seems like she perfected quality over quantity as Mamie's Million Dollar Fudge became one of Eisenhower's favorite desserts.

Mamie did learn to cook other desserts and dishes, but it was her fudge recipe that became a newspaper sensation once the Eisenhowers moved into the White House. The ingredient list included sugar, salt, butter, evaporated milk, semi-sweet chocolate, German sweet chocolate, marshmallow cream, and nuts. Unlike more complicated fudge recipes that required careful candy thermometer babysitting, Mamie's version embraced the beauty of convenience — packaged ingredients like canned milk and jarred marshmallow cream made it easier for even rookie cooks.

The hardest part of the whole process? The note at the bottom of Mamie's recipe with a reminder that fudge tastes even better on the second day. If you've waited this long to try Mamie's Million Dollar Fudge, surely you can wait one more day — but once you taste it, you'll understand why that bit of patience feels like the real challenge.