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Potato Cake
6 ozs. (3/4 cup) butter 1 lb. (2 cups) sugar 1/2 pint (I cup) English walnut meats 1/2 lb. (2 cups) flour 1/2 pint (I cup) hot mashed 2 teaspoonfuls baking powder 1 teaspoonful powdered cloves potatoes 1 teaspoonful powdered cinna- 1 gill (1/2 cup) milk mon 1/3 cupful melted chocolate 1/2 teaspoonful grated nutmeg 4 eggs Beat the butter and sugar to a cream, then add the potatoes, milk, chocolate, yolks of eggs well beaten, flour, baking powder, cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, and whites of eggs beaten to a stiff froth.
Mix all together, then add the chopped nuts. Turn into a buttered and floured casserole, and bake in a moderate oven for forty-five minutes.
A rich spice-and-chocolate cake bound with mashed potato, a common trick for keeping a heavy batter moist. The ingredient list was set in two columns and the lines run together, so read the quantities carefully before you start.
- The ingredient list, sorted out6 oz (3/4 cup) butter; 1 lb (2 cups) sugar; 1/2 lb (2 cups) flour; 1 cup hot mashed potatoes; 1 cup English walnut meats; 1 gill (1/2 cup) milk; 1/3 cup melted chocolate; 4 eggs; 2 teaspoons baking powder; 1 teaspoon each powdered cloves and cinnamon; 1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg.
- A gillHalf a cup, or 4 fluid ounces; the book gives the conversion in the list.
- Moderate ovenRoughly 350F by the usual modern equivalence; the book itself gives no temperatures. Test with a skewer at the centre, since the potato keeps the crumb damp and a moist skewer can mislead.
- The potatoes must be hotHot mashed potato beats more smoothly into the creamed butter and disperses; cold potato tends to stay in lumps. The recipe does not say whether the potato is otherwise seasoned or enriched.
- Melted chocolateThis means unsweetened block chocolate melted over hot water, not chocolate chips or cocoa. Roughly 2 1/2 to 3 oz unsweetened baking chocolate; the pound of sugar accounts for the lack of sweetness.
- Folding the whitesThe whites go in last among the wet and dry ingredients, then the nuts. Fold rather than beat at that stage, or the baking powder and the air both go to waste in a batter this heavy.
- The dishThe recipe means a baking dish, buttered and floured as directed. A heavy earthenware or fireproof dish holds heat well, so start checking at forty minutes and expect the outside to colour deeply.
- YieldA large cake, serving roughly ten to twelve. It cuts better the day after baking and keeps several days wrapped.
Potato in cake was thrift and chemistry at once: the starch holds water, so a cake made in a period without stabilisers or emulsifiers stayed moist for days instead of going dry overnight. Recipes of this kind spened, chocolate-darkened, walnut-studded, often called simply "potato cake" or "chocolate potato cake" spread widely through American community cookbooks and manufacturers' pamphlets in the decades either side of 1900, and they are still made in much the same form. Why it turns up in a book devoted to casserole cookery is less clear; such volumes often carried a section of cakes and breads alongside the savoury dishes.