Home › Griddle Cakes › Chocolate Cream Cake
Chocolate Cream Cake
1/2 cupful of butter, 2 cupfuls of sugar, 1 cupful of water, 3 cupfuls of sifted flour, 3 level teaspoonfuls of baking-powder, 1 teaspoonful of vanilla, whites of 4 eggs. Cream the butter, add the sugar gradually, continuing the creaming; then add the water and flour, a little at a time; having the baking-powder sifted with the flour, continue stirring until the water and flour are all used. Now add the vanilla and well-beaten whites of the eggs, stir just enough to mix, and pour into 3 large or 4 small layer-cake pans, and bake in a moderate oven for about twenty minutes.
A plain white layer cake built on egg whites and water rather than milk, meant to be split and filled. The method is old-fashioned but sound; the only real adjustments are pan size, oven temperature and how the whites go in.
- Oven temperature"Moderate" in books of this period is usually taken as roughly 350-375F; 350F works well here. Twenty minutes is right for thin layers; test at eighteen and expect up to twenty-five if you use three 9-inch pans.
- Pan sizes"Large" layer-cake pans can be read as 9-inch rounds and "small" as 8-inch. Grease and line the bottoms with parchment; these butter cakes stick badly in the modern thin-gauge pan.
- Water, not milkWater is deliberate. It keeps the crumb white and lets the vanilla read clearly, which is the point of a cake meant to be layered with a dark filling. Substituting milk gives a creamier but yellower cake.
- The egg whitesThe recipe does not say how far to beat the whites; soft peaks are the safer choice for folding, and "stir just enough to mix" is the hinge of the recipe. Fold them in with a spatula in two additions; overworking at this stage collapses the lift the whites contribute.
- Baking powderThree level teaspoons for three cups of flour is standard by modern measure. Make sure it is double-acting and within date, and sift it with the flour as directed rather than adding it separately.
- FlourThree cupfuls of sifted flour means sifted first, then measured, which is roughly 12 oz / 340 g. Measuring by scooping unsifted flour will add several ounces and give a dry, tight cake.
- Adding water and flourAlternate them, beginning and ending with flour, and beat only until each addition disappears. Take "continue stirring" as hand-mixing instruction; a stand mixer will overdo it.
- Yield and fillingThree 9-inch layers, serving 10 to 12. The cake as given is unfilled; a chocolate cream or pastry-cream filling between the layers is what the title refers to, and any standard cooked chocolate filling suits it.