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Devils Cake
Custard Part 1 C grated chocolate 1/2 C sweet milk Yolk 1 egg 1 t vanilla 1 C brown sugar Cake Part 1 C brown sugar 1/2 C butter 1/2 C sweet milk 2 eggs 2 C fiour 1 t soda Cream butter, sugar and yolk of eggs. Add milk, sifted flour and whites of eggs, beaten stiff; put together, then stir in custard. Last add a scant 't soda dissolved in a little warm water. 1¼ C brown sugar 2 large T butter
A standard turn-of-the-century devil's food: a chocolate custard cooked separately and stirred into a plain butter batter. The printing is rough in places, and one line has clearly lost its fractions.
- Cook the custard firstThe "Custard Part" was almost certainly meant to be cooked: chocolate, milk, yolk, sugar and vanilla together in a double boiler or heavy pan over low heat until thick and smooth, then cooled before going into the batter. The recipe does not say so outright, but it gives no other use for the grouping.
- "Grated chocolate"This means unsweetened baking chocolate, grated from the block so it would melt quickly. One cup grated is roughly 4 oz; modern unsweetened chocolate chopped fine or 4 oz of chopped 100% cacao behaves the same.
- Sweet milkPlain whole milk, specified to distinguish it from the sour or buttermilk that many recipes in these books call for. Nothing needs substituting.
- The soda, twiceThe ingredient list gives 1 t soda and the method calls for "a scant t soda dissolved in a little warm water" at the very end. These are most likely the same teaspoon rather than two. Dissolve it, add it last, and get the pans into the oven promptly.
- Flour"2 C fiour" is 2 cups of flour, roughly 8-9 oz; period flours are often described as softer than today's, so measure by spooning and levelling rather than scooping.
- The stray last line"14 C brown sugar 2 large T butter" looks like a broken fraction, probably 1/4 cup sugar and 2 tablespoons butter, and reads as the opening of a frosting or filling whose remainder did not make it onto the page. Use any brown sugar or fudge frosting you like.
- Pans and ovenThe recipe gives no pan or oven directions. This quantity should fill two 8-inch round layers or one 9x9 square; a modern 350F for 25-30 minutes (35-40 for the square) is a reasonable choice.
- Whites folded, not beaten inThe stiff whites go in with the flour and should be folded, not stirred, or the lift they provide is lost before the soda has a chance to work.
Devil's food appeared in American community cookbooks around the turn of the twentieth century, the dark counterpart to the pale angel food cake that was fashionable at the same moment; the pairing of names is generally taken to be the point. The reddish-brown crumb that gave early versions their character is attributed to the reaction of alkaline baking soda with acidic natural cocoa, a chemistry that Dutch-processed cocoa and modern chocolate largely undo. Church and society cookbooks were typically assembled from members' own contributions, which helps explain both the telegraphic style and the mangled fractions: the contributor knew what she meant, and assumed her neighbours would too.