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Unfortunately, this post is not about fudge - the wonderful 19th century trend of mixing butter, sugar and milk, ending up in a confection that's delicious. Today's featured recipe is chocolate fudge cake, which is the next best thing. It's been adapted from Ruth Wakefield's Toll House tried and true recipes (1936).
"Cream 1/2 cup of butter. Add 1 cup sugar and mix well. Add 3 eggs, beating 1 at a time. Next beat in 1 cup of milk, alternately, with 2 1/4 cups flour, sifted with 1tsp. cream of tartar and 1/2tsp. soda. Lastly add 2 squares chocolate, 5tbsp. sugar, 3tbsp. hot water which have been heated together. Add 1tsp. vanilla. Bake in a moderate, 350o to 375o, oven in a fairly large pan."
Chocolate fudge cake and fudge in general is basically American. The finished cake is wonderfully moist but not half as rich as Devil's food cake - another U.S. specialty. Perhaps it's Ruth's version only but the cake somehow lacks flavor, or deep flavor, to be exact. However, it does feel good to eat, bringing back childhood memories. Of course, noone would blame the author for putting only two chocolates squares in the batter. It was the 1930s - 1940s, after all.
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The original recipe doubled and slightly adapted in my kitchen is like this:
CHOCOLATE FUDGE CAKE
I n g r e d i e n t s
1 cup butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
5 eggs
2 cups milk
4.5 cups flour
1tbsp baking powder
1tsp vanilla extract
1 cup grated chocolate
M e t h o d
1. Preheat the oven to 180oC. Butter and flour two large oblong baking pans. 2. Sift the flour with the baking powder. Melt the chocolate in a double boiler. 3. Cream the butter and sugar in a bowl, adding the eggs one by one, and the vanilla extract. Beat in the milk alternately with the flour. Stir in the melted chocolate. 4. Transfer the batter to the pans and bake for over an hour, until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. 5. Leave the cakes in the pans until cool, then upturn onto a wire rack and leave to cool completely.
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