1870 to 1899 Cake #6

Chocolate Sauerkraut Cake

A little Chocolate cake history: All hail Sarah Rorer, a dietician, the director of the Philadelphia Cooking School, and a columnist for Ladies Home Journal. This woman was the daughter of a chemist and was the first to try stirring melted chocolate into cake batter! Rorer's chocolate cake recipe was the first to be published, in 1886, in Mrs Rorer's Philadelphia Cook Book.

Chocolate took off from there and scholars even lectured about its positive health benefits. According to Maria Parloa of Boston, "chocolate nourishes the body while it also stimulates the brain." (my kind of woman:)

Chocolate cakes went by different names such as Black Joe Cake, Black John, Morganza, Oxblood, Hoosier, and eventually Red Devil or Devil's Food. The combination of baking soda and chocolate create a a reddish hue which brings historians to believe that that is why the cake was given the title "devil's". Some newspapers were not too keen on the title, calling it a "horribly suggestive name."

Chocolate Sauerkraut Cake:

Sauerkraut, or chopped and fermented cabbage, adds moisture to a cake. The Pennsylvania Dutch used sauerkraut in a multitude of ways and they excelled at cake baking. This recipe was adapted from The Thirteen Colonies Cookbook by Mary Donovan, Amy Hatrak, Frances Mills, and Elizabeth Schull. It originated from the Keim Homestead historic property of West Lobachsville, Pennsylvania.

My experience:

I had heard of sauerkraut, but I had never seen it or tried it before. The smell of it is rank and I had to turn my head away when I was draining it. I thought for sure it would overpower the cake and make it have a nasty flavor or aftertaste. The cake was pretty simple to make and looked pretty good. I was nervous to try it, but it smelled ok. I took a bite and it tasted like a nice, moist chocolate cake. I was pleasantly surprised. My other taste testers liked it too and because of the sauerkraut it still seemed fresh a few days later because it did not dry out. I guess those settlers knew how to make things last:)