Chocolate Cake

A compact late-nineteenth-century layer cake that assumes you know the parts it leaves out: no pan, no oven, no salt, no flavoring. The proportions work, but the chocolate-milk mixture is the part that decides whether the cake succeeds.

• Cool the chocolate milk firstMelt the chocolate into the milk, then let it cool to barely warm before it meets the creamed butter and eggs. Added hot, it melts the butter out of suspension and begins to set the eggs, and the cake bakes dense.
• "One-half cake Baker's chocolate"Walter Baker's unsweetened chocolate was commonly sold in half-pound (8 oz) cakes scored into squares, so half a cake is probably about 4 oz, or four squares of modern unsweetened baking chocolate. It is bitter and unsweetened — do not substitute a sweetened bar without cutting the sugar.
• "Butter size of a butternut"A butternut is roughly the size of a small egg in its husk, but the kernel is smaller; in practice this direction means about 2 tablespoons. Anywhere from 1 1/2 to 2 tablespoons behaves the same here.
• The batter will look thinOne cup of flour against a cup of milk-and-chocolate gives a pourable batter, not a stiff one. That is correct for this style of cake; resist adding flour to thicken it.
• Oven and panBake at 350F. The volume suits two 8-inch layers (about 18-20 minutes) or one 8-inch square pan (about 30 minutes), tested with a straw or skewer in the center.
• Work quickly at the endBaking powder of this period was largely single-acting, so the recipe expects the pan to go into a hot oven immediately after the flour and powder go in. Have the oven up to temperature and the pans greased before you start.
• What is missingAdd 1/4 teaspoon salt with the flour, and a teaspoon of vanilla if you want it; both were often left unwritten in short receipts of this kind. There is no frosting given here; a plain boiled or confectioners' icing is one plausible finish.
• YieldA modest cake, eight thin slices from a square pan or a small two-layer round.