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Chocolate Cream Cake
Make the same cake as for cocoanut cream cake, using for the custard filling one and one-half cups of milk, one-half cup of sugar, the yolk of one egg, three tablespoons of Larkin Corn Starch, and one and one-half teaspoons of Larkin Vanilla Flavoring Extract. Spread between the layers, and ice the top and sides with an icing made by melting two squares of unsweetened chocolate, and one and one-half cups of powdered sugar and the white of one egg.
A cornstarch pastry cream between plain butter-cake layers, finished with an uncooked chocolate icing. The original assumes you have already turned back to the cocoanut cream cake for the batter and that you know how to cook a starch custard without lumps.
- The cake itselfThis entry is only a filling and an icing; the layers come from the cocoanut cream cake recipe elsewhere in the book, which is not reprinted here. Any 8- or 9-inch two-layer yellow cake will carry it.
- Chocolate squaresA "square" of unsweetened chocolate is one ounce, so this is 2 oz total. Unsweetened baking chocolate, not cocoa and not bittersweet; the sugar in the icing is calculated against a chocolate with none.
- Powdered sugarMeans confectioners' sugar, sifted. Period powdered sugar was generally coarser than today's 10X, so sift and expect to adjust by feel.
- Making the fillingSlake the cornstarch in a little of the cold milk, scald the rest with the sugar, then add the starch and cook, stirring, until it thickens and loses its raw taste — a full minute or two at a bare simmer. Temper the yolk with a spoonful of the hot mixture before adding it back, and cook a moment more. Three tablespoons of starch to a cup and a half of milk sets very firm, firm enough to hold the layers apart without oozing.
- Cool before spreadingChill the custard with a sheet of plastic or buttered paper on the surface. Spread it warm and it will soak into the crumb and slide.
- Raw egg white in the icingThe icing is uncooked: melted chocolate, sugar and a raw white beaten together. Use pasteurized egg white if the cake is for children, the elderly, or anyone pregnant. It will also be stiff — work in a teaspoon of hot water or cream at a time until it spreads.
- YieldEnough filling for two layers and enough icing for the top and sides of a single 8- or 9-inch cake; ten to twelve servings. Keep it cool, and eat within two days.
- The Larkin brandsLarkin cornstarch and Larkin vanilla were mail-order house brands. Any cornstarch and any good vanilla extract substitute directly at the same measures.
The Larkin Company of Buffalo began as a soap manufacturer and grew into one of the largest mail-order suppliers in the United States, selling groceries, flavoring extracts and household goods directly to customers who earned premiums with their purchases. Cookbooks like this one were part of that machinery: every recipe that calls for Larkin cornstarch or Larkin vanilla is quietly a reorder form, which is why the brand name appears mid-sentence where a plain ingredient list would do. The cake itself is standard turn-of-the-century American layer-cake practice — a lean butter cake, a starch-thickened "cream" filling that cost far less than whipped cream and kept better in an unrefrigerated pantry, and an uncooked icing bound with egg white. The same base batter was recycled across a whole family of cakes in these books, varied only by what went between the layers: cocoanut, lemon, caramel, or in this case chocolate.