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Chocolate Nougat Cake
1/4 cup butter 3 teaspoons baking powder 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar 1/2 teaspoon vanilla 1 egg 2 squares chocolate, melted 1 cup milk 1/3 cup powdered sugar 2 cups bread flour 2/3 cup almonds, blanched and shredded Cream the butter, add gradually one and one-half cups sugar, and egg unbeaten; when well mixed, add two-thirds milk, flour mixed and sifted with baking powder, and vanilla. To melted chocolate add one-third cup powdered sugar, place on range, add gradually remaining milk, and cook until smooth. Cool slightly, and add to cake mixture. Bake fifteen to twenty minutes in round layer cake pans. Put between layers and on top of cake White Mountain Cream sprinkled with almonds.
A plain creamed-butter layer cake with a cooked chocolate paste stirred in at the end, finished with boiled frosting and almonds. Two points of vocabulary do most of the work here: "powdered sugar" and "squares" of chocolate.
- Powdered sugarIn American books of this period "powdered sugar" means finely granulated sugar, not the cornstarch-laden confectioners' sugar sold today. Ordinary granulated sugar is the correct substitute in both places, including the third cup cooked with the chocolate.
- Squares of chocolateTwo squares means two ounces of unsweetened baking chocolate. Modern bars are usually scored in one-ounce sections; do not use semi-sweet, as the recipe supplies its own sugar.
- The chocolate pasteMelting the chocolate with sugar and then letting down with milk over heat gives a smooth, thick paste rather than seized chocolate. Cool it to barely warm before it goes into the batter or the butter will break out of the emulsion.
- Bread flourAll-purpose flour is the usual modern substitute, measured by spooning into the cup and levelling, roughly 8 to 9 oz for the two cups.
- Baking powderThree teaspoons to two cups of flour is on the generous side by modern standards; two teaspoons gives a less coarse crumb and no metallic aftertaste, particularly with a single-acting powder.
- OvenThe recipe specifies no temperature; 375F is a reasonable modern setting. Fifteen to twenty minutes suits two 8- or 9-inch layers; test with a skewer at fifteen.
- The unbeaten eggOne egg for two layers is a lean formula, so it matters that it goes in with the sugar and butter and is creamed until light. That aeration is most of the cake's lift beyond the baking powder.
- White Mountain CreamThe frosting called for elsewhere in these books is a boiled-sugar syrup beaten into stiff egg white -- what is now sold as seven-minute or boiled frosting. Any Italian meringue frosting stands in for it.
- YieldTwo thin layers, serving eight to ten. Shred the blanched almonds thin and toast them lightly if you want the nougat character the name promises.
The "nougat" of the title appears to refer to the almonds rather than to any boiled sugar confection. The cake itself belongs to the Boston Cooking-School lineage -- creamed butter, powdered sugar, bread flour, chemical leavening, and a frosting called White Mountain Cream, all of which appear in Fannie Farmer's work and in the domestic-science manuals that followed her. Cooking the melted chocolate with sugar and milk before adding it to the batter recurs in other chocolate cake recipes of the period.