THE ORIGINAL ‘RECEIPT’

Go to the DEVIL CAKE.

2 cups sugar

⅓ cup butter

2 eggs

½ cup sour milk

1 teaspoon soda

2 ½ cups flour with

1 teaspoon B.P.

1 teaspoon vanilla

½ cup chocolate and cocoa mixed 

½ cup boiling water poured on chocolate and mixed into batter last thing

~Ida A. Shaver, handwritten receipt book. (Ida was born in 1871 and died in 1959)

THE UPDATED RECIPE

• 2 c. brown sugar
• ⅓ c. butter
• ⅛ tsp. salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 2 ½ c. sifted all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• ½ c. sour milk (to make sour milk use ½ Tbsp. lemon juice and add milk to ½ cup mark)
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 oz. grated unsweetened baking chocolate
• 4 Tb. cocoa
• ½ c. boiling water.

Preheat oven to 350F.

Grease a 9-inch diameter tube pan with butter. (A tube pan is any type of round baking pan that has a tube in its centre – the type of pan that is used for an Angel’s Food Cake, for example.)

Grate the chocolate and combine it with the cocoa.

In a mixing bowl, cream together the sugar, butter and salt with a wooden spoon, until smooth.

Beat each egg lightly with a fork, and then add to the creamed mixture;  beat in thoroughly after each addition.

Add the vanilla, and beat in well.

Sift and measure the flour;  then add the baking powder to it, and sift together.

Add the baking soda to the sour milk, and stir until frothy.

Alternately add portions of the sour milk, and then the flour, to the batter mixture;  beat thoroughly with a wooden spoon after each addition.

Add the boiling water to the cocoa and grated chocolate; stir to blend together.

Immediately add the chocolate mixture to the batter, and beat thoroughly until smooth and light in texture.

Pour the batter into the buttered tube pan, and run a knife through the batter to eliminate any air pockets.

Bake in the preheated oven at 350F for approximately 1 hour, or until a cake tester, when inserted into the deepest part of the cake, comes out clean.

Remove from the oven, and cool on a rack for 5 to 10 minutes;  then gently loosen the edges of the cake with a sharp knife, and invert the cake onto a serving plate.

Remove the tin when the cake ‘drops’ onto the plate.

Allow to cool, and then ice as desired.

Go To The Devil Cake is best served the day that it is baked; it has a lovely, moist texture, and rich, chocolatey flavour.

“Devil Cake” or “Devil’s Food” was a popular chocolate cake during the early years of the twentieth century.  At that time, the name was considered rather risqué.  In my grandmother’s handwritten cook book, “Go to the” appears to have been added in a different hand;  I suspect that one of my mischievous uncles was the guilty culprit!

A note from Patricia: After seeing some adorable meringue ghosts on Pinterest, I knew a cake recipe would be my next attempt so that I could make use of them, and I thought that making a “Devil’s Food” cake would be appropriate in preparation for All Hallow’s Eve. I made this cake gluten-free using 1:1 gluten-free baking flour, and the substitution worked out great. Based on the recommendation below to ice the cake with a marshmallow icing, I decided to whip up a 7-minute icing (I used this one and used the cream of tarter option), and it was fluffy and sugary and reminded me of childhood. I made sure to slice the cake horizontally so that I could put a gooey layer of icing in the middle, and the icing recipe allowed for a nice thick layer of the icing on the outside too. For the meringue ghosts, I used 2 egg whites beaten stiff, added 1/2 cup granulated sugar a bit at a time, and added 1/4 tsp. cream of tartar, then piped some blobs onto a parchment lined cookie sheet, and baked them at 200F for about 60 minutes. Once cooled, I gave them eyes and a mouth with some melted chocolate, and plopped them on top of the cake. The cake turned out wonderfully – it was rich and chocolatey, the icing was gorgeous, and the ghosts were a cute, spooky touch. Shout out to Kristi who ate two pieces in one sitting. 🙂

“…Meanwhile Aunt Laura is teaching me how to make a certain rich and complicated kind of chocolate cake after a recipe which a friend of hers in Virginia sent her thirty years ago.  Nobody in Blair Water has ever been able to get it and Aunt Laura made me solemnly promise I would never reveal it.”

“The real name of the cake is Devil’s Food but Aunt Elizabeth will not have it called that.”

~Montgomery, Lucy Maud.  Emily Climbs.  Toronto, Canada: McClelland and Stewart Ltd., 1925.

DEVIL CAKE

….Ice with marshmallow frosting.

~Five Roses Cook Book.  Montreal: Lake of the Woods Milling Company Limited, 1913.

DEVIL’S FOOD.  – NICE. – …Bake in jelly cake tins and use boiled icing between and on top. 

~Karn, W. A. The Art of Cooking Made Easy. Woodstock, 1903.