Chocolate Cake

 

I posted about this card back in 2010.  I guess it really caught my eye.  I was going to delete this post but I decided to keep it.  My thoughts are similar 10 years later. This one is more about the little picture cut out of a boy on the recipe card.  Who is this boy? Is he a relative (an Uncle? Nephew? My Grandpa?)  Why did she go to the trouble to cut it out and paste it on this recipe card?  Was it a favorite of the person? Who knows. I sure wish we had gone through these while she was alive.  I would love to understand this.  It's a mystery I'll probably never solve.  Maybe I should retitle this  "Mystery Chocolate Cake".  It has four easy steps, designated by roman numerals.  I find this unique as well. 

This recipe calls for scalding the milk - I have done that for bread, but not for cake.  I decided to find out some history behind scalding milk.  The process is simply heating up the milk to just before it boils.  In the past, this was done before milk was pasteurized - a safety thing I guess.  Today it is commonly done when baking bread and activating yeast.  Other reasons for scalding milk include infusing the milk with other flavors (in this case the cocoa powder) or for efficiency in dissolving sugar and butter.  This cake recipe also calls for a "Scant" cup of sugar.  Interesting that "barely sufficient" or "filling short of a specific measure" is key to a recipe - another one of those recipe mysteries. Never mind time and temperature with this recipe. I'm sure those things were just assumed to be known.

Chocolate Cake

I. Scald 1 cup milk, 3 Tbsp cocoa - let cool.

II. Mix 1 (scant) cup sugar, 1 Tbsp butter - 2 eggs

III. Add cocoa and milk mixture and 1/2 tsp. soda - 1 tsp. B.P.  1 cup flour.

IV. Beat until smooth.  Butter and flour pan.

That's it.  I preheated oven to 350°, cooked it for about 24 min.  This fit an 8" round cake pan.  I chose to use a simple Vanilla Buttercream Frosting. Interestingly enough, I found very few frosting recipes in my Grandma's Recipe boxes.  Probably will find one in some of the others, but I was just too impatient to surf through all the boxes. Same as when I baked this 10 years ago, I don't really recommend running out and making this - at least I am consistent.  It's a little heavy, maybe a good texture for one of those "poke" cakes.  Enjoy.