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Picnic Cake
2 cups sugar 3/4 cup shortening 4 egg yolks, beaten well 2 squares bitter chocolate, melted 1 cup hot mashed potato 1 cup chopped walnuts 1/2 cup milk 2 cups flour 4 teaspoons baking powder 1 teaspoon cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon cloves 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg 1/2 teaspoon salt 4 egg whites, beaten stiff Cream shortening and sugar, add egg yolks. Mix together melted chocolate, mashed potato and nuts. Add to creamed mixture. Sift together the dry ingredients and add alternately with the milk. Beat well. Fold in stiffly beaten egg whites and bake in a loaf in moderate oven (350 degrees F.) for 45 minutes. Cover with white icing into which raisins or nuts have been stirred.
A chocolate spice cake made moist with mashed potato — a common trick in American cake baking from the 1890s through the 1930s. A few of its instructions assume a kitchen that no longer exists.
- The potato is the hingeIt must be plain: potato boiled in unsalted water, riced or mashed smooth with nothing added — no butter, milk, or seasoning. Leftover supper mash will throw the fat and salt balance off. Add it hot, as directed, so it blends into the creamed mixture instead of setting into lumps.
- Bitter chocolate"Bitter" here means unsweetened baking chocolate, 1 ounce to the square, so 2 ounces total. Melt and let it cool slightly before combining with the potato and nuts, so it blends in more evenly.
- ShorteningIn a book of this date this means lard or a hydrogenated vegetable shortening such as Crisco. Butter works and tastes better, but the crumb will be slightly firmer and less tender.
- LeaveningFour teaspoons of baking powder to 2 cups of flour is high by current standards; this may reflect the powders of the period, or simply the weight of a batter loaded with potato and nuts. With modern double-acting powder the cake will rise fast and may dome and crack; that is characteristic of the style rather than a fault.
- Pan and volume"Bake in a loaf" means one large loaf, but this is a big batter for a single pan. It can be divided between two 9x5-inch loaf pans, or baked in a 10-inch tube pan, greased and floured.
- Time and doneness350F is correct. Forty-five minutes suits two smaller loaves; a single deep loaf or tube cake will want 55 to 70 minutes. Test with a skewer in the centre — the potato keeps the crumb damp, so look for clean, not merely moist.
- The icingA plain confectioners'-sugar water icing or a boiled white icing, thick enough to hold chopped nuts or raisins in suspension. Ice only when the cake is fully cold or the icing will slide.
- YieldTwo loaves, about 16 to 20 slices. It keeps three or four days well wrapped and is better on the second day, once the spices settle.