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Devil's Cake
Two squares of chocolate, three tablespoons of water, one and one-fourth cups of sugar, one-half cup butter (scant), one cup of sour or buttermilk, one teaspoon of soda, yolk of one egg, two scant cups of flour. Heat and melt the chocolate, water and sugar; when dissolved add the butter, set aside to cool; mix buttermilk, soda and beaten yolk, add the melted chocolate mixture, and then the flour, and bake in two layers in a moderate oven, reserving the white of the egg for the frosting.
— Miss Mary Deer
A compact turn-of-the-century chocolate layer cake that relies on soda and sour milk for its lift. The instructions assume a cook who knows what cake batter should look like, so a few numbers are worth filling in.
- Squares of chocolateA square meant a one-ounce block of unsweetened baking chocolate, so this is 2 oz total. Modern bars are usually scored into 1 oz sections; do not substitute sweet or semisweet, since the sugar is already accounted for.
- Moderate ovenRoughly 350F; period "moderate" covered about 350 to 375F. Two 8-inch layers will take roughly 25 to 30 minutes; test with a skewer at the center rather than by time alone.
- Sour milk or buttermilkEither supplies the acid the soda needs. Cultured buttermilk works directly; if using milk soured with a tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice, let it stand ten minutes before mixing.
- Soda, not baking powderOne teaspoon of soda against one cup of buttermilk is the whole leavening system. Get the batter into the pans promptly once the flour goes in, as the reaction begins immediately.
- Scant measures"Scant" means just short of a level cup. It matters most for the flour, since two full cups gives a noticeably drier crumb.
- Cool the chocolate mixtureThe melted chocolate, sugar and butter should be genuinely cool before meeting the egg yolk and buttermilk, or the yolk may curdle into threads.
- No salt or vanillaNeither is listed. A quarter teaspoon of salt and a teaspoon of vanilla are period-plausible additions and improve the flavor.
- The frostingOne reserved egg white points to a boiled icing or a simple confectioners' sugar frosting of the era; the recipe leaves the choice to the cook. Yields one two-layer cake, about 10 slices.
Devil's cake, or devil's food, appears in American community cookbooks around the turn of the twentieth century, and the name is generally understood as a dark counterpart to the pale, eggy angel food cake, which had become fashionable somewhat earlier. The reddish-brown color old recipes were prized for is a byproduct of chemistry rather than any added coloring: soda in excess of the acid it neutralizes raises the pH of the batter and shifts natural cocoa toward mahogany. By this period chocolate was sold in wrapped one-ounce squares cheap enough for a church-supper layer cake. The attribution to Miss Mary Deer is typical of the form; these books were assembled from named neighbors, and the signature was part of the recommendation.