It has been a while. I feel that one of my aims with this blog is to happily intertwine food experiences with daily life and occasionally with family anecdotes.
This spring, the main influence and big love of my life died. She was my Mom. We had warning, as she had a long fight with an illness, but, really....you are never ready for that time. I had mostly stopped my cooking and baking expeditions in the months leading up to and right after her death. My sister too; we just didn't have the energy, as everything was focused on Mom's struggle and denouement, and I daresay a good dose of depression crept in and lingers still. It's a complicated grief we are living with, because we identified with her so much; that pervades every thing; there are a lot of firsts still to deal with - first Thanksgiving, first Christmas, and then the turn into the new year where you can certainly mark the passage of time, of time without your loved one. Six months later, we are juuuust getting used to not saying, "Oh I gotta call Mom, I can't wait to tell her....". Some people have even had the temerity to ask, "So are ya over it yet?" I can't even begin to know how to address that.
So as we wade our way through, the desire to do some of our favorite things, is slowly, achingly, stirring again, from what felt like depths of everlasting cold.
I have baked a few pies, and I try to incorporate something of Mom's always. I baked an apple galette two nights ago, and used her pie pan. It was a pie pan she didn't use very much, alas, but she had it in her baking arsenal and it "lived" with her. It makes me feel like I have another tie to her if I use it.
And tonight, I'm baking a cake; I'm wearing Mom's pink apron and using Mom's baking powder - yes - that's how recently she was here.
So, here goes, tonight's presentation:
1902 Cake! A chocolate layer cake from the 1902 Royal Baking Powder Company's pamphlet.
My husband and I came upon this pamphlet two years ago, at an antiques barn in Pennsylvania. I have not made anything from it until tonight; something grabbed me yesterday to pull this down off the shelf and leaf through it. One of the reasons I bought it was because I found a handwritten notepaper inside with a recipe for "White Xmas Cakes(Grandmother Richard's)" in it. I was intrigued and charmed; and for 99 cents, we bought the pamphlet. Yes I intend to try to make those Christmas cakes at Christmastime.
But for tonight, it was chocolate I craved, and here we go!
I will show photos first, then transcribe the recipe.
This is the baking book.
This is the egg batter - this here is two egg yolks, whipped sans the whites, with 2 cups of powdered sugar.
Here is the not Royal baking powder.
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| Incorporating the flour and baking powder and salt into the yolk mixture. |
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| This is the chocolate I used for the filling - Luker bittersweet chocolate. It's what I happened to have on hand; otherwise I would usually choose Baker's chocolate. |
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| Voila! |
Now the recipe was very without direction - it didn't even direct what temperature to bake at! I realized that the baker was assumed to be cooking over what I think is a coal stove. (I am looking into taking a class that shows one how to cook over an old stove in upstate NY. More on that when they have the classes again.)
I was keen to make this recipe also because I wanted to see how the 1902 palate compared to ours. When my sister and I competed in the Emily Dickinson contest, in the rules, they cautioned us to expect different tastes and consistencies than what we were used to in the breads and cakes made in 19th century America. And the gingerbread we produced for that contest was NOT like anything you would find on store shelves today - it was denser and not as sweet.
Alright, without further delay, here is the receipt - as it is called in the book - for the cake, then the filling receipt will follow.
Chocolate Layer Cake:
2 eggs, 2 cups powdered sugar, 1 cup milk, 2 cups flour, 2 scant teaspoons Royal Baking Powder, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon vanilla. Mix flour, salt, and baking powder. Beat egg yolks till thick. Gradually add and beat in the sugar. Add vanilla and milk, whites whipped stiff, and flour. Bake in 3 layer-cake pans in hot oven. Put together with chocolate filling, No. 2 (see Cake Fillings).
BLOGGER'S NOTE: I only used two pans - I found there was not enough batter to fill three 8 inch pans. A few pages later, under "Fillings and Icings for Cake", was listed, "Chocolate Filling, 2.
Chocolate Filling, 2.:
5 tablespoons grated chocolate, cream to moisten, 1 cup sugar, 1 egg, 1 teaspoon extract vanilla. Beat egg, add chocolate and sugar, cook over fire till thick, add flavoring.
And???? How did it taste????
Well... I would encourage you to make this and taste for yourself, but in short......the cake itself is not as sweet, and it is a little hard to slice through. The prologue on Cakes in the booklet recommends you use a "hot knife" to cut through the cake so that it crumbles less; I see the wisdom in this - I had to saw through the cake a bit. So it is not as sweet, but the filling is where the sweet is - it's a bit grainy, and it is indeed chocolatey. As a modern birthday cake, this cake would disappoint, but as a cake to have with afternoon tea or coffee, it is delightful and not at all overwhelming.
