Fudge Cake
1/3 cup butter or shortening 1 1/2 cups sugar 3 eggs 2 1/2 cups flour 2 teaspoons baking-powder 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/2 cup cocoa 1 cup milk 1 1/2 cups chopped walnut-meats 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla Cream the butter or shortening and sugar; add the well-beaten egg-yolks. Mix and sift the dry ingredients and add alternately with the milk. Stir in the chopped nut-meats, well floured, and add the flavoring. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg-whites. Bake in layer-cake tins in a moderate oven (380 degrees F.) for forty-five minutes. When cold, spread chocolate frosting between layers and on top.
A butter cake carrying its chocolate as cocoa rather than melted chocolate, with a heavy load of walnuts. The batter is stiff and the stated bake time belongs to a deeper pan than most layer tins.
- The bake time is the thing to watchForty-five minutes at 380F will dry out standard 8- or 9-inch layers. Start checking at 25 minutes; the layers are done when the centre springs back and a tester comes out with a few moist crumbs. If you divide the batter into two deeper 9-inch pans, 35-40 minutes is closer.
- "Moderate oven (380 degrees F.)"The book gives an exact number rather than only a word. Anything between 350F and 375F in a modern calibrated oven will behave much the same; use 350F if your oven runs hot or your pans are dark metal.
- CocoaA cocoa of this period in an American household recipe would most likely be natural (non-alkalised). Dutch-process will work here, since the leavening is baking powder rather than soda, but it gives a darker crumb and a milder, less fruity chocolate flavour.
- Flouring the nutsTossing the chopped walnuts in a spoonful of the measured flour before folding them in keeps them from sinking. Take that flour from the 2 1/2 cups rather than adding extra.
- Separated eggsThe yolks go in with the creamed butter and sugar; the whites are beaten stiff and folded in last, after the nuts and vanilla. Fold gently and stop while a few streaks remain, or the heavy batter will deflate them.
- Shortening versus butterShortening gives a slightly higher, softer crumb and no flavour of its own; butter gives better flavour and a firmer cake. Both cream best at cool room temperature, somewhere around 65-70F.
- Yield and frostingEnough batter for two 8- or 9-inch layers, serving 10 to 12. Reckon on roughly 2 cups of chocolate frosting to fill and top it; the recipe names no frosting, so it assumes one given elsewhere.
Despite the name, this is not fudge in a pan -- it is a plain creamed layer cake given a fudge-like character by cocoa, a generous sugar-to-flour ratio and a thick chocolate frosting. "Fudge cake" as a title appears in American cookbooks and magazines through the early twentieth century, a period in which packaged cocoa powder was cheap and widely available, letting home bakers get chocolate flavour without melting bar chocolate into a batter. The Delineator was a Butterick magazine with a household department alongside its fashion pages; the printed figure of 380F, rather than a bare "moderate," reflects the move toward thermostat-equipped ranges.