Home › Village Receipts › Black Chocolate Cake (One cup of sugar one-half cup)
Black Chocolate Cake (One cup of sugar one-half cup)
One cup of sugar, one-half cup of butter, one egg, yolks of two eggs, one-half cup of milk, two cups of flour, two teaspoons of baking powder, one-half cake of cholocate in one-half cup of milk, one teaspoon of vanilla.
— Mrs. J. H. Bigelow
A village-cookbook receipt of the usual sort: a list of ingredients, no method, no pan, no oven. The proportions are sound and translate directly to a two-layer butter cake.
- "One-half cake of chocolate"This is the genuinely ambiguous measurement. Commercial cakes of unsweetened chocolate were not standardised across brands, so half a cake might be nearer 2 oz or nearer 4 oz. For two cups of flour, around 2 oz (2 squares) of unsweetened chocolate is the safer reading; a larger amount risks a drier crumb.
- Melting the chocolateThe chocolate is dissolved in the second half-cup of milk, not melted dry — warm them together gently until smooth, then cool before adding, or the hot mixture will scramble the eggs and soften the creamed butter.
- Total liquidTwo half-cups of milk are called for in separate places, one plain and one with the chocolate. The full cup is correct for two cups of flour; do not read the second as a repetition of the first.
- EggsOne whole egg plus two additional yolks. The extra yolks add richness and give a tender, slightly heavy crumb. Whites left over from a receipt like this would have gone into a boiled or white frosting.
- Method, since none is givenCream butter and sugar, beat in egg and yolks, add flour sifted with the baking powder alternately with the milk, then the cooled chocolate milk and vanilla.
- OvenNo oven is specified. A moderate oven, in modern terms about 350F, suits a cake of these proportions; two greased 8-inch layers will want roughly 25 to 30 minutes, a single 8-inch square pan somewhat longer.
- YieldOne two-layer 8-inch cake, about ten servings. Cakes of this sort were generally served frosted.
The book belongs to the great wave of American community cookbooks compiled by church and village societies, in which each contributor's name stood beside her receipt -- hence Mrs. J. H. Bigelow's signature and the terse, methodless format, written for women who already knew how to build a butter cake and needed only the proportions. "Black" chocolate cake is generally taken to mean a cake dark all the way through, as opposed to marble cakes or plain cakes merely finished with chocolate frosting. Unsweetened chocolate was sold in solid cakes or bars, which is why the quantity is given as a fraction of a cake rather than in ounces. Cheap chemical baking powder and more affordable chocolate brought cakes like this within reach of ordinary households, and layer cakes with boiled frosting were a common offering at church suppers and fairs of the sort that produced this book.