Home › Village Receipts › Black Chocolate Cake (One heaping cup of sugar)
Black Chocolate Cake (One heaping cup of sugar)
One heaping cup of sugar, one-fourth cup of butter, two eggs, one-fourth pound of chocolate, one and one-half cups of flour, one and one-half teaspoons baking powder, one cup sweet milk, onefourth teaspoon salt; flavor with vanilla. Put together as follows: Rub sugar and butter to cream, then add the eggs well beaten; grate the chocolate and take half of the milk, place in a bowl over the boiling teakettle until dissolved, then add alternately the flour, milk and chocolate. Bake in a quick oven in layers.
— Mrs. Joseph Spoor
A plain butter-and-milk layer cake darkened with a full quarter pound of unsweetened chocolate. The proportions are sound; the oven instruction is the part to ignore.
- "Quick oven" is too hot hereA quick oven was generally reckoned at somewhere around 400-450F. For two modern 8-inch layers, bake at 350F for 22-28 minutes, until a tester comes out clean.
- The chocolateA quarter pound is 4 oz of unsweetened baking chocolate, which is what the sugar quantity here assumes. Chips or semisweet will throw the sugar off; use unsweetened bars, chopped fine rather than grated if you prefer.
- Melting over the teakettleThe chocolate and half the milk go into a bowl set over the boiling kettle, an improvised double boiler. Use a heatproof bowl over barely simmering water, stir until smooth, and let it cool to lukewarm before adding it to the batter.
- "Sweet milk"Fresh whole milk, the standard period term distinguishing it from sour milk or buttermilk. The leavening here is baking powder rather than soda, so use sweet milk as specified.
- A heaping cup of sugarRoughly 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons, about 8 oz. The quarter cup of butter is only 4 tablespoons, which makes this a lean, slightly chewy cake rather than a rich one.
- Order of mixingCream sugar and butter, beat in the eggs, then alternate flour, remaining milk and the chocolate mixture. Add the salt and vanilla with the flour so they distribute; the original leaves both to your judgment.
- Flour1 1/2 cups of unbleached all-purpose will work; cake flour is nearer the softer period flours and will give a finer crumb. Sift the baking powder and salt through it.
- Yield and finishingTwo 8-inch layers, serving 8 to 10. No filling or frosting is given, so choose your own.
Recipes titled "black chocolate cake" turn up in American community cookbooks from the later nineteenth century, the name apparently distinguishing them from lighter chocolate-flavored cakes with a tan crumb. A quarter pound of chocolate in a two-layer cake was a generous amount: chocolate was still sold largely in hard unsweetened cakes intended chiefly for drinking, and the instruction to grate it is spelled out for that reason. The direction to dissolve it in a bowl over the boiling teakettle is the most telling line on the page, since it assumes a kettle on the range and no dedicated double boiler in the house.