Devil's Food Cake and Seven-Minute Frosting from "Margaret Rudkin's Pepperidge Farm Cookbook"

Where to even begin with this cake? My first attempt at making it was a complete and utter failure. Even though the instructions threw me for a loop (I’ve never seen a recipe that has the butter and sugar mixed directly in with the dry ingredients without creaming), I carried on as though I was making the densely moist and chocolatey cake I know. This resulted in a batter that was absolutely luscious but that barely rose in the oven. One layer even decided it was taking up residence in its pan and had to be taken out in pieces. Ugh. Back to the drawing board.

Mistakes needed to be corrected, so a little research was in order. The recipe is in the section of Mrs. Rudkin’s book titled “Country Life,” in which she recounts her move to the Connecticut countryside in 1926 to what became Pepperidge Farm. This led me to assume that her recipe dated from sometime in the 1920s or 1930s, giving me a place to begin my research.

The first known recipe for Devil’s Food Cake was published in “Mrs. Rorer’s New Cookbook” in 1902. There seems to be a general consensus that the cake was named thusly as it was the counterpoint to Angel Food Cake and intended to also be a light, airy sponge. That explained everything! If I was making a light sponge and not the modern version of Devil’s Food Cake, I had woefully undermixed my batter, explaining the flat cakes I had ended up pulling from the oven. Back to the kitchen!

The second round of cake making began. I mixed the batter correctly this time and decided to use my glass cake pans instead of the metal ones I had used the first time (mainly because I didn’t feel like washing them). The batter was just as luscious, if not more so, this time around and the resulting cakes rose like a charm and popped right out of the pans. Success!

Two days of life got in the way of finishing the cake with Seven-Minute Frosting. The cakes were wrapped and stored in the fridge. When I was able to find time to make the frosting, I was immediately doubtful that one egg white would provide enough volume to frost a two-layer cake. I dutifully followed the recipe as written, though I did take the liberty of using an electric hand mixer instead of the rotary one called for by Mrs. Rudkin, which just sounded painful. After seven minutes of mixing the frosting over simmering water, it was obvious that one egg white wasn’t cutting it. As I use my KitchenAid mixer bowl as the top of my double boiler, I popped the bowl onto the mixer and gave the frosting a spin with the whip attachment. The volume and consistency improved, but it was still not enough frosting. A second batch was made. I finally had enough to frost the whole cake. Though a third batch would not have been a bad idea, my arm was tired from using a hand mixer for 14 minutes.

The cake was frosted and decorated with chocolate leaves I had made a couple days earlier. Husband and child waited (mostly) patiently while the cake was fussed with and duly photographed. Time to taste!

The light sponge and the fluffy frosting are a good pairing. I had considered a standard buttercream as it’s easy and I could make it in my sleep, but it would have been too heavy for this cake. The Seven-Minute Frosting was definitely the right choice. Unfortunately, the cake itself, though delicious, was a bit dry, which may have been my fault since I kind of forgot it was cooling and it sat out far longer than it should have before being wrapped and put in the fridge.

Overall, it’s a good cake. Is it one I’ll make again? Probably not. I’m a chocolate fiend and this was fairly light on chocolate flavor, but that’s understandable for the times in which it originated.

All in all, it was a fun experiment and I’m glad I tried it. Now off to choose the next kitchen adventure!