19-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Monday, August 3, 1914: We had chocolate ice cream and devil’s food cake for supper. The ice cream was the remains of yesterday. The cake also.
Devil’s Food Cake (Hundred-Year-Old Recipe)
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
I’m going to repost part of a post that I originally posted on February 27, 2012 (1912) because it seems so appropriate for this diary entry:
Comparison of Hundred-year-old and Modern Recipes for Devil’s Food Cake
I recently bought a 1912 cookbook off eBay. My daughter glanced through it and noticed that the devil’s food cake recipe seemed very different from today’s recipes.
So we decided to compare a devil’s food cake made with a modern recipe with one made using a hundred year old recipe.
In the early 1900s angel food cakes and devils food cakes were seen as the polar opposites—one was white and light; the other dark and heavy.
The cake made with the hundred year old recipe was a dense chocolate spice cake. The recipe called for mashed potatoes (mashed potatoes ?!?!), cinnamon, nutmeg and nuts. It reminded us of gingerbread–though ginger was not an ingredient. I’ve never eaten anything exactly like it—but the cake was very good and I’d make it again.
100 Year-Old-Recipe
Calumet Devil’s Food Cake (Chocolate Spice Cake)
2 cups flour
2 level teaspoons Calumet (or any other brand) baking powder
2 level teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 3/4 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup milk
3/4 cup butter
2 eggs
1 cup warm mashed potatoes
2 squares unsweetened chocolate
1 cup chopped nuts
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour baking pan, 13 X 9 X 2 inches. Melt butter and chocolate. Combine with all of the other ingredients except nuts. Beat until well-blended. Stir in nuts.
Pour into pan. Bake approximately 45-50 minutes or until pick comes out clean.
Adapted from the recipe in Calumet Baking Powder Reliable Recipes (1912)
The modern devil’s food cake recipe that my daughter made was from my Betty Crocker Cookbook. The recipe called for red food coloring—but otherwise seemed similar to other modern chocolate cake recipes. The cake was awesome.
Modern Recipe
Devil’s Food Cake
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar (packed)
1 1/2 teaspoons soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
1/2 cup shortening
2 eggs
2 ounces melted unsweetened chocolate (cool)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon red food color
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour baking pan, 13x9x2 inches, or two 9-inch or three 8-inch round layer pans. Measure all ingredients into large mixer bowl. Blend 1/2 minute on low-speed, scraping bowl constantly. Beat 3 minutes high-speed, scraping bowl occasionally. Pour into pan(s).
Bake oblong about 40 minutes, layers 30-35 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool.
(Recipe suggests using chocolate or cream cheese frosting.)
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
mmm. . . Ice cream and cake sound good.
It’s weird, but I have a vague sense of changing technology and transportation across the 3 1/2 years that I’ve been posting the diary entries.
Grandma’s family often made ice cream on Sundays when her married sister Besse and her husband Curt came to visit. However, I think this is the first time they had ice cream during the summer.
In the past they always made it during the winter when ice was readily available. I think that they got the ice out of animal watering troughs or from the creek. For example, on January 22, 1911 Grandma wrote:
Went to Sunday school and church this morning. Made ice cream. That is my sister made it and I assisted. I got the ice. Besse and Curt came out this evening. Just when Ruth and I were having a little spat all to ourselves.
(Grandma sometimes had ice cream during the summer at a festival—and once at a friend’s home— but never at home.)
Besse and Curt lived in nearby Watsontown. My take is that technology and transportation were changing—and that it was easier (or at least less expensive) to get ice during the summer months in 1914 than had been back in 1911.
19-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Saturday, August 1, 1914:
The summertime is passing on,
To summers that have gone before.
Life is an ever-changing scene,
Which we would fair explore.
Am beginning to count the days until the 17th beams upon my horizon. Ruth and I went to a festival up in town given for the benefit of the church.
Site of the McEwensville Baptist Church years ago. Was the festival held at the church? It’s difficult to picture a church and a festival on this lot.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Grandma—
There are hints about so many things in this diary entry—but so little substance. What is going to happen on the 17th? What did you and your sister Ruth do at the festival? Did you see the person mentioned in yesterday’s diary entry?
. . . Went to a surprise party this evening. It was over at Carrie’s. Enjoyed myself as much as I usually do. I think no doubt remains as to the state of my feelings concerning somebody.
