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Cocoa Angel Cake
Whites 5 eggs, 1/2 teaspoon cream tartar, beat until dry, add gradually one cup granulated sugar with which 1/4 cup of Baker's Breakfast Cocoa has been sifted, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla, fold in carefully 1/2 cup flour, bake in tube pan 1/2 hour. Ice with nut and fruit icing.
HOME MADE CANDY RECIPES SPECIALLY PREPARED BY MRS. JANET McKENZIE HILL PEPPERMINTS, CHOCOLATE MINTS, Etc. (Uncooked Fondant) White of 1 egg, 2 tablespoonfuls of cold water, Sifted confectioner's sugar, 1/2 a teaspoonful of essence of peppermint or a few drops of oil of peppermint, 1 or 2 squares of Bakers Premium No. 1 Chocolate, Green color paste, Pink color paste. Beat the egg on a plate, add the cold water and gradually work in sugar enough to make a firm paste. Divide the sugar paste into three parts. To one part add the peppermint and a very little of the green color paste. Take the paste from the jar with a wooden tooth pick, add but a little. Work and knead the mixture until the paste is evenly distributed throughout. Roll the candy into a sheet one-fourth of an inch thick, then cut out into small rounds or other shape with any utensil that is convenient. Color the second part a very delicate pink, flavor with rose extract and cut out in the same manner as the first. To the last part add one or two squares of Baker's Chocolate, melted over hot water, and flavor with peppermint. Add also a little water, as the chocolate will make the mixture thick and crumbly. Begin by adding a tablespoonful of water, then add more if necessary, knead and cut these as the others. CHOCOLATE CARAMEL WALNUTS (Uncooked Fondant) White of 1 egg, 3 tablespoonfuls of maple or caramel syrup, 1 tablespoonful of water, Sifted confectioner's sugar, 1 teaspoonful of vanilla extract, 2 or more squares of Baker's Premium No. 1 Chocolate, English walnuts.
Beat the white of egg slightly, add the syrup, water, sugar as needed, the chocolate, melted over hot water, and the vanilla, also more water if necessary. Work with a silver-plated knife and knead until thoroughly mixed, then break off small pieces of uniform size and roll them into balls, in the hollow of the hand, flatten the balls a little, set the half of an English walnut upon each, pressing the nut into the candy and thus flattening it still more. The caramel gives the chocolate a particularly nice flavor. HOW TO COAT CANDIES, &c., WITH BAKER'S "DOT" CHOCOLATE Half a pound of "Dot" Chocolate will coat quite a number of candy or other "centers" but as depth of chocolate and an even temperature during the whole time one is at work are essential, it is well, when convenient, to melt a larger quantity of chocolate. When cold, the unused chocolate may be cut from the dish and set aside for use at a future time. If the chocolate be at the proper temperature when the centers are dipped in it, it will give a rich, glossy coating free from spots, and the candies will not have a spreading base. After a few centers have been dipped set them in a cool place to harden. The necessary utensils are a wire fork and a very small double boiler. The inner dish of the boiler should be of such size that the melted chocolate will come nearly to the top of it. Break the chocolate in small pieces and surround with warm water, stir occasionally while melting. When the melted chocolate has cooled to about 800 F. It is ready to use. Drop whatever is to be coated into the chocolate, with the fork push it below the chocolate, lift out, draw across the edge of the dish and drop onto a piece of table oil cloth or onto waxed paper. Do not let a drop of water get into the chocolate. CHOCOLATE DIPPED PEPPERMINTS (Uncooked Fondant) Prepare green, white pink and chocolate colored mints by the first recipe. After they have dried off a little run a spatula under each and turn to dry the other side. Coat with Baker's "Dot" Chocolate.
GINGER, CHERRY, APRICOT and NUT CHOCOLATES White of 1 egg, 2 tablespoonfuls of cold water, Sifted confectioner's sugar, Almond or rose extract, Preserved ginger. Candied cherries, Candied apricots, Halves of almonds, Halves of pecan nuts, 1/2 a pound of Baker's "Dot" Chocolate.
Use the first four ingredients in making uncooked fondant. (Caramel syrup is a great addition to this fondant, especially if nuts are to be used. Use three tablespoonfuls of syrup and one tablespoonful of water with one egg white instead of the two tablespoonfuls of water indicated in the recipe.) Work the fondant for some time, then break off little bits and wrap around small pieces of the fruit, then roll in the hollow of the hand into balls or oblongs. For other candies, roll a piece of the fondant into a ball, flatten it with the fingers and use to cover a whole pecan or English walnut meat. Set each shape on a plate as it is finished. They will harden very quickly. Dip these, one by one, in Baker's "Dot" Chocolate and set on an oil cloth.
A compact angel food formula with cocoa carried in the sugar. The instructions assume a cook who already knows the method, so a few of the assumptions are worth spelling out.
- Oven temperatureNo heat is given. An angel cake of this size wants a moderate oven, 325-350F, for the stated half hour; test with a skewer in the thickest part. Higher heat sets the crust before the centre rises.
- The tube panLeave it ungreased. The batter climbs the sides of the pan as it bakes, and a greased pan gives it nothing to hold. Invert the pan on its feet or over a bottle neck as soon as it comes out and leave it until fully cold.
- "Beat until dry"This is period language for whites beaten to stiff, firm peaks that hold their shape and no longer slide in the bowl, not for whites beaten past the point of cohesion. Overbeaten whites go grainy and the cake collapses.
- QuantitiesFive whites is roughly 2/3 cup. The half cup of flour should be cake or pastry flour, sifted before measuring; sift it with the cocoa if you like, then fold in three additions with a light hand.
- The cocoaBreakfast Cocoa was natural unsweetened cocoa, not Dutch-process. Any plain unsweetened cocoa works here; the recipe has no chemical leavening, so acidity is not a factor either way.
- YieldA small cake, roughly an 8-inch tube pan, serving eight. It is dry by design and depends on the icing; a plain confectioner's icing or whipped cream serves as well as the nut and fruit icing referred to.
- On the uncooked fondant that followsThose candy recipes bind raw egg white with confectioner's sugar and are never heated. Raw egg white carries a salmonella risk that a modern kitchen should not accept; if you want fondant, use a cooked or pasteurised-white recipe.
Walter Baker & Co. of Dorchester, Massachusetts, was among the oldest chocolate manufacturers in the United States, and its small premium booklets were straightforward advertising: the recipes here all name a Baker's product, from Breakfast Cocoa to the confectioner's coating sold as "Dot" chocolate. The candy pages here were prepared by Janet McKenzie Hill, founder of the Boston Cooking School Magazine and one of the most widely trusted recipe writers of her day, whose name on a pamphlet was worth a good deal to a manufacturer. The cake itself belongs to the American angel food tradition that spread in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, once cheap cream of tartar, fine white flour and rotary egg beaters made a cake raised on nothing but beaten whites practical in a home kitchen; adding cocoa to the sugar was the natural way to make a chocolate version without weighing down the foam with melted chocolate.