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Nell's Chocolate Cake
One cup of butter, two of sugar, five eggs, leaving out two of the whites, one scant cup of milk, two full teaspoons of Cook's Friend baking powder; mix well in three cups flour; bake in two long shallow tins. Dressing : Beat the whites of the two eggs to a stiff froth, add a scant cup and a-half of sugar; flavour with vanilla, add six tablespoons of grated chocolate; add the dressing when the cake is cold, and cut in diamond slices.
A plain butter cake with an uncooked meringue-style chocolate frosting, written for cooks who knew their own stove. The gaps to fill are the pan size, the oven, and what "grated chocolate" meant.
- The measuresRead the cups as modern 8 oz cups, though nothing in the book standardises them: 1 cup butter is 8 oz / 225 g, 2 cups sugar about 400 g, 3 cups flour about 375 g. "Scant" means just under a level cup; the recipe uses it twice, for the milk and for the frosting sugar.
- Cook's Friend baking powderA Canadian brand of the period, sold out of Montreal and still on shelves. Any modern double-acting baking powder substitutes one for one, so two teaspoons for three cups of flour.
- Two long shallow tinsNot round layer pans. Something in the jelly-roll or quarter-sheet line is the likely intent; the exact size is not given, so judge it to get a shallow cake rather than a deep one. The shallow bake is what makes the diamond-cut serving work.
- OvenNo temperature is given because none could be. Bake at 350F; a shallow cake will be done well before a deep one, so start checking early and take it out when the centre springs back.
- Grated chocolateIn 1877 this means a hard block of unsweetened or barely sweetened eating chocolate, grated fine on a rasp. Use unsweetened chocolate grated or very finely chopped; cocoa powder is not the same thing and will drink up the frosting.
- The frosting is uncookedTwo egg whites beaten stiff with about 1 1/2 cups sugar makes a thick raw meringue, not a boiled icing. It sets by drying, so spread it on a fully cold cake and leave it uncovered for an hour or two. If raw whites are a concern in your household, use pasteurised whites.
- Egg economyFive eggs go into the batter but two whites are held back for the frosting, so the cake itself takes five yolks and three whites. Do not separate them out of order and lose the whites.
- Yield and cuttingTwo shallow tins give roughly 24 to 30 diamonds. Score the frosted cake on the diagonal in both directions once the surface has set, and wipe the knife between cuts.
This comes from The Home Cook Book, compiled in Toronto in 1877 by "ladies of Toronto and chief cities and towns in Canada" and generally counted among the first community fundraising cookbooks published in Canada, in the mould of the American charity cookbooks that followed the Civil War sanitary fairs. Books of that kind are full of first-name recipes -- Nell's, Aunt Mary's, Mrs. B's -- because contributors were identified informally. The chocolate here is worth noting: in the 1870s it was still a grated block rather than a powder, and a chocolate cake usually meant a plain butter cake wearing chocolate on the outside, as this one does, rather than a chocolate crumb.