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Chocolate Nougat Cake
One-half cup of sugar, one-half cup of sweet milk, one-half cake of chocolate and the yolks of two eggs. Cook this in a double boiler and cool. One and one-half cups of sugar, three eggs, one-half cup of butter, one-half cup of milk, two cups of flour, one teaspoon of soda dissolved in little hot water. Add the cooled mixture last. Flavor with vanilla. This can be baked as a loaf or layer cake. Use the whites of the two eggs for frosting, For the layer cake a blanched almonds or walnuts should be thrown on the frosting between the layers and on the top. I prefer English walnuts. - Mrs George H. Russel, Detroit.
A two-part cake: a cooked chocolate custard base folded into a plain butter batter. The instructions assume a cook who already knows how to cream butter and sugar, so the sequence needs filling in.
- "Half a cake of chocolate"Baking chocolate was commonly sold in half-pound cakes, often scored into squares of roughly an ounce, so "half a cake" is genuinely ambiguous: it may mean half a block (about 4 oz) or half a square. Two ounces of unsweetened chocolate suits the quantities here; 4 oz makes a darker, drier cake.
- The chocolate baseSugar, milk, chocolate and yolks cooked in a double boiler thicken to a loose custard. Stir constantly and pull it off while it still coats a spoon; cool it completely or it will melt the creamed butter.
- EggsFive eggs total: two yolks in the cooked base, three whole eggs in the batter, and the two leftover whites reserved for frosting.
- Sweet milkPlain fresh whole milk, as opposed to the sour milk or buttermilk that many nineteenth-century recipes with soda call for.
- Soda without acidA teaspoon of soda is a lot to leaven with only the faint acidity of unsweetened chocolate to react against. Half a teaspoon of soda, or a swap to two teaspoons of baking powder, avoids the soapy edge and grey cast that excess soda gives chocolate batter.
- Assembly orderCream the butter with the cup and a half of sugar, beat in the whole eggs, then add flour and milk alternately, then the soda water, then the cooled chocolate and vanilla last, as directed.
- Oven and timingThe recipe gives no oven direction. Bake at about 350F: two 9-inch layers take 25 to 30 minutes; a loaf in a 9x5 pan takes 45 to 55 minutes. Grease and flour the pans -- this batter is rich enough to stick.
- The frostingTwo whites beaten with about three cups of confectioners' sugar gives an uncooked icing; a boiled icing over the same whites holds the nuts better. If serving anyone who should avoid raw egg, use pasteurized whites.
- Nuts and yieldRoughly a cup of chopped English walnuts scattered on the icing between layers and over the top. The cake serves 10 to 12.
Nougat in American cake books of this period often meant not the chewy confection but a cake studded with nuts -- a "nougat cake" being a plain or chocolate cake finished with white icing and walnuts or blanched almonds. This one arrives with a contributor's name and city attached, the mark of a recipe gathered from readers or club members and printed with the credit intact. Blocks of unsweetened chocolate were a staple grocery item by the 1890s, and the cooked chocolate-and-yolk base here is a thrifty way of stretching a small amount of it through a large cake while putting the whites to work on the frosting.