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Solid Chocolate Cake
Blend two cups of brown sugar with one-half cup of butter, add the yolks of three eggs and one-half cup of sour milk. Melt four squares of unsweetened chocolate in one-half cup of boiling water and cool. Add to the other ingredients. Stir in two cups of flour with one teaspoon of Larkin Baking Powder, and one teaspoon of Larkin Soda, the white of one egg beaten stiff and one-half teaspoon of Larkin Vanilla Flavoring Extract. Bake in a dripper, and cover with an icing made by boiling one and one-half cups of sugar with one-quarter of a cup of water until it will string, beating into it the well-beaten whites of two eggs, and flavoring with one-fourth teaspoon Larkin Vanilla Flaxoring Extract.
A dense sour-milk chocolate cake from a manufacturer's booklet, with no oven temperature, no pan size and no baking time — all three have to be supplied. The batter is thick, so mix it only until the flour disappears.
- A dripperA dripping pan: the shallow rectangular pan that sat under a roast. Use a 9x13-inch pan, greased and floured. The batter will be about an inch deep.
- Oven and timeNone is given. Bake at 350F for 30 to 35 minutes, until a skewer in the centre comes out clean and the cake springs back.
- Squares of chocolateOne square of unsweetened baking chocolate is 1 ounce, so this is 4 ounces in total. Let the chocolate-and-water mixture cool to lukewarm before it goes in, or it will melt the butter and loosen the batter.
- Sour milkNot spoiled milk but naturally soured raw milk, acidic enough to react with the soda. Use buttermilk, or stir 1 1/2 teaspoons of lemon juice or vinegar into half a cup of whole milk and let it stand ten minutes.
- Both soda and baking powderThe soda neutralises the acid in the sour milk and the natural acidity of the chocolate; the baking powder supplies the rest of the lift. Keep both, and get the cake into the oven promptly once the soda is in.
- Larkin brand namesLarkin Baking Powder, Soda and Vanilla Flavoring Extract are the sponsor's own products. Any double-acting baking powder, ordinary bicarbonate of soda and pure vanilla extract will do. "Flaxoring" in the last line is a typesetting slip.
- Boiled icing, "until it will string"The syrup is ready when a spoonful drawn up leaves a thread, roughly the thread stage of about 230-235F on a thermometer (some boiled-icing recipes take it a little higher). Pour it into the stiffly beaten whites in a thin steady stream while beating, and keep beating until the icing holds its shape and has cooled to warm.
- The whites in the icingHot syrup cooks the whites only partially. If you are serving anyone who should avoid undercooked egg, use pasteurised whites.
- YieldOne 9x13 sheet cake, about 15 squares, with icing to cover the top generously.
The insistent brand names give this recipe away as advertising copy: it comes from a promotional cookbook issued by the Larkin Company of Buffalo, the soap manufacturer that grew into one of the great American mail-order houses by selling household goods direct to "Larkin Clubs" of neighbourhood women, with premiums thrown in. Recipe booklets like this were the sweetener, and the branded items appear in capital letters while the plain staples do not. The cake itself is a period type rather than a Larkin invention \- the sour-milk-and-soda chocolate layer or sheet cake is generally said to have become common in American home baking once packaged baking chocolate and reliable chemical leaveners were cheap, towards the end of the nineteenth century. "Solid" here seems to point to a close, firm, moist crumb rather than a light sponge, the sort of cake meant to be cut in squares and keep a few days under its boiled white icing.