Apple Cranberry Butter Pecan Lightning Cake & The USS Lexington

Today is Veteran’s Day, November 11, 2020. We honor anyone and everyone who served in the United States Armed Forces and earned their DD-214 credentials. One hundred and one years ago to this exact day, at the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month, our country first celebrated all veterans. Armistice Day on November 11, 1919 was also the first anniversary of the end of World War I. President Eisenhower and Congress, in 1954, officially made Veteran’s Day a federal holiday.

For this grateful American, my heart goes out to all veterans (and their families) who have served throughout the years in all of the branches. While wandering down the bread aisle at the local Wally-World yesterday, I socially-distanced carts with an older gentleman proudly sporting a WWII Veteran ball cap. I instantly thought of my Grand-dad, who served in the U.S. Army. Sadly, according to the Pew Research Center, only about 300,000 vets from this Greatest Generation are still alive. Sixteen million men and women served during WWII, including my Grand-dad and The Hubby’s Grand-dads…none of whom are alive anymore.

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This Veteran’s Day, I’m thinking about those remaining men and women who are alive today from the WWII era. There are many locations honoring WWII, such as the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, Virginia or the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana. Both are phenomenal places to visit, but let’s head south to the Gulf of Mexico. More specifically to Corpus Christi, Texas and the USS Lexington.

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The USS Lexington is a special ship who’s had five reincarnations. On May 8, 1942, the fourth Lexington (CV-2) was sunk during the Battle of the Coral Sea. (You can read about the discovery of the sunken wreck in 2018 here.) The naval shipyard workers at Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts, in summer of 1942, petitioned Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox for another ship named Lexington. Fortunately, Secretary Knox agreed to name this CV-16 the Lexington instead of the USS Cabot, officially commissioning it on February 17, 1943.

From Tarawa in November 1943 to Tokyo in August 1945, the USS Lexington fought in every major naval campaign. The Japanese gave her the nickname “Blue Ghost” as they thought she was sunk on five different occasions. Overall, she earned eleven battle stars, and was the first large carrier to enter Tokyo Bay during the occupation force until 1946. “Lady Lex” or the “Gray Lady” as the crew called her was decommissioned on April 23, 1947.

Lady Lex sat in the “moth ball” fleet until August 1955, when she was recommissioned. Updated with a new flight deck, hurricane bow and aft aircraft elevator repositioned, USS Lexington became a training carrier for 75 officers and 1,368 enlisted personnel. The Blue Ghost was decommissioned on November 8, 1991. Shortly after, in June 1992, the U.S. Navy signed over the USS Lexington to the city of Corpus Christi, where the Lexington Museum has been open since October 1992.

Visiting the Gray Lady is a unique experience. Exhibits featuring Pearl Harbor, the Battle of the Coral Sea, and military aviation history are scattered throughout the Gallery Deck. Artwork and murals painted by former USS Lexington crew are plentiful.

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Displays honoring and respecting fallen or lost shipmates, as well as other service members, appear throughout the USS Lexington.

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After watching a film in one of the ship’s theaters, self-guided tours continue below decks. Passageways lead to the engine room, up to the medical deck, including the optometrist and dentist, berthing areas (sleeping), mess (eating) decks and and flight squad debriefing rooms, complete with a slot machine!

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The slot machine was used by the VF-19 Squadron during their squad parties. According to Jack Wheeler, fighter pilots loved to party just as much as they loved to fly. They also felt the Navy didn’t pay them enough to shoot down Japanese Zeros, so this “Visual Aid Recognition Machine” helped raise money for it’s pilots during morale events and identify the Japanese aircraft (Zeros, Bettys and Judys) they were required to shoot down.

The Blue Ghost’s “Kill Board” displays the results of it’s air groups and ship’s gun tallies during WWII. In the midst of red sun flags sits one lone black flag. The “Black Flag” is credited to Ensign Dean Reitz DeWitt, who flew with Air Group VF-19, stationed onboard the Gray Lady. On October 24, 1944, ENS DeWitt was a flying a night Combat Air Patrol over Japanese-held Philippines. He lost radio contact with the Air Group, requiring him to rely on visual contacts. Under the cloud cover, ENS DeWitt saw a Japanese Betty (bomber) and shot the plane down; thus earning credit VF-19’s only night kill. All other red flags represent daytime combat.

Above decks, aspiring officers can perch in the Captain’s Chair from the Bridge. From a view station, imagine fighter jets and auxiliary aircraft taking off and landing on the Flight Deck. (Twenty aircraft on the Flight Deck make up another self-guided tour.) Working in pairs on the ship’s starboard side, visitors pedal power to manually rotate and raise the 38 caliber guns. Those working on their 10,000 steps can earn some by following the lines painted on Lady Lex’s decks…901 feet long from stern to beyond the bow on the plank walk. Yowsers!

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Plato wrote in 400-something B.C., Necessity is the mother of invention. However, Agatha Christie said in 1900-something, I don’t think necessity is the mother of invention. Invention, in my opinion, arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness to save oneself trouble. War-time conditions require both necessity and saving valuable time, but the WWII era folks I grew up around were anything but lazy.

Today’s recipe taps into necessity and time-saving efforts by enlisted the help of a boxed cake mix and canned pie filling in a dump-style Apple Cranberry Butter Pecan Lightning Cake. On some days, if a cake mix is what you’ve gotta do, then do it!

Nothing screams Americana more than an apple pie. In the 1940’s war-time era, this was undoubtedly true! The time and love put into every peeled piece and crimped edge is a time-honored labor of love. It’s comfort food at it’s finest and flakiest! But like everything else, baking has evolved.

In the 1920’s, bread making was on the down-low due to the rise in commercial bakeries. Flour millers panicked, and in 1929, molasses reached a surplus status. Enter necessity…The P Duff and Sons Company invented a canned cake mix featuring some of their dried molasses and marketed it to the masses. Home bakers only had to add water, bake it off, and wha-la…fresh gingerbread cake. Unfortunately for P Duff and Sons, women everywhere felt their families were being cheated. What’s caring about simply adding water to a powdered mix? The off-putting dried egg taste didn’t help any either, so the canned mixes slowly moved off of store shelves.

By the time the United States entered World War II in 1941, the immigrated apple pie from the 1600’s was synonymous with unabashed patriotism. Service members were fighting around the world “for mom and apple pie.” Many were young unmarried men, drafted at the age of 18. Every sailor, soldier and airman longed for a home-cooked meal, particularly mom’s comforting apple pie, all the while enduring “A, B, and C” rations.

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But oh how home bakers love to save valuable time! Dump cakes got their start as a simple snack-style dessert cake, using baking powder and soda to quickly leaven the batter. Newspaper recipes from the early 1940’s show how basic pantry ingredients stirred together using very few bowls. Cakes were called “Quickie” or “Lightning” since the they could be prepared expeditiously.

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The Dump Cake recipe as we know it today appeared in the late 1950’s. Bakers experimented with readily-available, boxed cake mixes to suit their sweet teeth. Boxed gelatin and pudding mixes jazzed up an otherwise boring boxed cake. The Emporia Gazette in Kansas channeled their inner Agatha Christie, featuring two slacker-worthy recipes–a cherry pineapple concocted Dump Cake and a “Lazy Salad” using fruit cocktail, crushed pineapple, marshmallows and sour cream.

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Over the past half century, dump-style cakes have earned a bad rap for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, who wants to eat a gob of “dump” cake? It’s not a very palette-pleasing name, is it? And secondly, the ingredients piled into a cake pan don’t always seem to fit together—cake mix, canned fruit and soda pop? The finished products from these time-saving bakers’ efforts (or lack of) sometimes end in an unbaked, unappealing presentation. But fear not with Apple Cranberry Butter Pecan Lightning Cake.

For this post, I wanted an all-American apple pie dessert without all of the fuss. Since it’s Fall, apples tastefully pair with cranberries and pecans. The featured ingredients are simple and easily found in most grocery stores–a box of butter pecan cake mix, two cans of your favorite apple pie filling, butter, pecans and dried cranberries. If your local mega-mart doesn’t carry a butter pecan cake mix, swap it out for a yellow cake mix.

After spraying a 9 by 13-inch cake pan with nonstick spray, layering these ingredients on happens in lightning-quick time. First spread the apple pie filling out, then sprinkle on dried cranberries, the cake mix, and pour on the melted butter. Use a butter knife to gently swirl the melted butter into the cake mix. This will get rid of any dry cake mix and large gooey butter pools in the final dessert. Finish with the chopped pecans, bake to gooey golden goodness, and serve warm with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream! Yum-O!

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Apple Cranberry Butter Pecan Lightning Cake is perfect dessert to share at a small celebration, possibly honoring your favorite veteran. It’s also quick enough for a weeknight after-dinner treat or a last minute get-together. Either way, I hope you enjoy this all-American themed dessert. Thank you again to all of the Veterans out there!

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