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Black Chocolate Cake (One cup of sugar one large)
One cup of sugar, one large tablespoon of shortening, two eggs, two and one-half cups of flour, one cup of milk; boil one-half cake of chocolate, one cup of sugar, yolk of one egg, one-half cup of water until it thickens; take off and let cool, then add to the white cake. Bake in a hot oven.
— Mrs. William Webster
A two-part cake: a plain white batter and a cooked chocolate paste stirred in at the end. The written instructions assume a cook who already knows the standard creaming method, and they leave out several things she would have taken for granted.
- Half a cake of chocolateBaking chocolate was sold in solid cakes, commonly quarter- or half-pound, often scored into squares; sizes were not standardised, so 'half a cake' may mean anywhere from an ounce or two up to about 4 ounces of unsweetened chocolate. Modern 1-ounce squares or a bar of 100% cacao are the nearest equivalent.
- No leavening is listedWith sweet milk and 2 1/2 cups of flour, this batter has only the two eggs to lift it. Whether the omission was an oversight or simply assumed knowledge cannot be told from the page; two teaspoons of baking powder sifted with the flour brings it into line with comparable recipes of the period.
- ShorteningIn a book of this vintage this means butter or lard rather than the hydrogenated vegetable fat the word now suggests. One large tablespoon is only about half an ounce, which makes this a notably lean cake by modern standards.
- EggsThree eggs in total: two whole ones in the batter and one extra yolk boiled into the chocolate mixture. The leftover white is not called for and can go into a boiled icing.
- The boiled chocolateChocolate, sugar, yolk and water are boiled together until the mixture thickens; stir constantly so the yolk does not scramble. The recipe says to take it off and let it cool before it goes into the batter, which also keeps the fat in the batter from melting.
- A hot ovenPeriod usage generally puts a hot oven somewhere around 400-450F, which suits a shallow layer in a wood range but will scorch a chocolate batter in a modern one. Bake at 350F, roughly 25-30 minutes for layers or 40-45 for a loaf, until a tester comes out clean.
- YieldThe quantities should fill about two 8-inch layers or one 9x5 loaf. The recipe gives no finishing instruction; a boiled white frosting is a common partner for cakes of this type.
"Black cake" in nineteenth-century American usage generally meant a dark fruitcake, though the name also attaches to chocolate cakes of the kind made here. The distinguishing trick -- cooking chocolate with sugar, a yolk and water into a paste and folding it into an otherwise plain white batter -- produces a moister, darker crumb than simply melting chocolate into the butter.