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Chocolate Vienna Cake
3/4 cup butter 7/8 cup sugar Yolks 5 eggs 4 squares Baker's chocolate 1 1/2 cups flour 3 teaspoons baking powder Whites 5 eggs Apricot or Orange Marmalade Mix ingredients in order given, and bake in small tins. Remove from tins, cool, take out a small portion of cake from the centre of each, and fill cavity with marmalade. Cover tops of cake with Marshmallow Frosting or Chocolate Frosting IV.
A butter cake enriched with four ounces of unsweetened chocolate, baked as individual cakes, hollowed and filled with marmalade. The written method is telegraphic; a few unstated steps are assumed.
- Melt the chocolate first"Baker's chocolate" in squares means unsweetened baking chocolate, one ounce per square, so four ounces here. It must be melted and cooled to barely warm before it goes in, or it will seize the creamed butter into grains.
- "Mix in order given"The period shorthand means cream butter and sugar, beat in the yolks, add the melted chocolate, then the flour sifted with the baking powder, and fold the stiffly beaten whites in last. The whites are leavening as much as the powder.
- 7/8 cup sugarTake it as a cup less two tablespoons, or weigh it at about 6 oz.
- Baking powderThree teaspoons to a cup and a half of flour is about double modern practice. One and a half teaspoons is ample with five beaten whites in the batter, and a lighter hand avoids the metallic note a heavy dose can leave in chocolate.
- Small tinsIndividual cakes, baked in muffin tins or small fluted moulds. The recipe gives no oven heat; fill the tins two-thirds and try a moderate oven, about 350F, for 18 to 22 minutes, until a tester comes out clean.
- Hollowing and fillingCool completely before coring, and cut a cone from the top with a small paring knife rather than digging with a spoon. Warm the marmalade slightly and stir it smooth so it spoons in without tearing the crumb; a thick apricot jam works if marmalade is not to hand.
- The frostingsBoth named frostings are separate recipes elsewhere in the book. Marshmallow frosting of this era may be a boiled sugar syrup beaten into egg white, or melted marshmallows folded into a boiled frosting; an Italian meringue or a plain chocolate glaze will serve the same purpose.
- YieldRoughly a dozen to fifteen cakes from standard muffin tins.