1900 to 1916 Cake # 7

Wellesley Fudge Cake

The Wellesley Fudge Cake was inspired by fudge that was made by young women at Wellesley College. This cake is deep chocolate and it is covered with a thick fudge frosting. A food-writer once said that the cake was so popular in the Northeast that it is, "In the bloodstream of all New Englanders." This cake made its first appearance in a tea room over Palmer's Shoe Store on Wellesley Square and it was also baked in the old Wellesley Inn. A recipe for the cake was entered into a time capsule, at the Wellesley College library, to be opened in 2081.

I am going to include an excerpt from the book that describes how the students at Wellesley created their fudge. I love it because is shows that no man or person can stand between women and their chocolate:)

College girls have been cooking in their dorm rooms for a long time. Yet in the past, those culinary efforts were frowned on by one university, the prestigious female Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, just west of Boston. Girls are said to have cooked fudge in their dorm rooms, melting the butter and chocolate over a Bunsen burner "on loan" from the chemistry lab. They added cream and sugar and cooked the mixture down until thickened, then cut it into squares using a nail file. But making fudge was in violation of the school's rules against snacking, which supposedly diverted too much blood away from the brain. Henry Fowle Durant, the founder of Wellesley, vowed "Pies, lies, and doughnuts should never have a place at Wellesley College." But he didn't mention fudge. Meanwhile, Vassar College girls, according to Mark Zanger in his the American History Cookbook shared the love of fudge. "Oh fudge," was an exclamation Vassar girls coined instead of swearing.

My Experience:

I made this cake for my husband's end of the school year teacher party, and he said that they gobbled it right up. This cake was simple to make and so was the frosting. It is always nice when the list of ingredients takes up less than half of a page. This is a classic chocolate cake and people always enjoy the classics. I obviously liked this cake because of course, CHOCOLATE! But I actually enjoyed reading about the college students going behind the headmasters back to satisfy their cravings even more than eating the cake myself.