What does a 1920s BIRTHDAY CAKE taste like?

I make myself a chocolate birthday cake using a 100 year old recipe, and I explore the history of birthday cake and why we put candles on them.

Follow Tasting History with Max Miller here:

INGREDIENTS
(For the cake)
- 1 cup (225g) butter at room temperature, plus more for the pan
- 1 tsp baking powder
- A pinch of salt
- 6 large eggs (or 7 medium)

(For the icing)
- 1 cup (115g) powdered sugar
- 2-3 tbsp cherry or orange liqueur

ORIGINAL 1922 RECIPE
Super-Chocolate Cake. Half a pound fresh butter beaten to a cream, 7 eggs (yolks and whites beaten separately, and the whites stirred in the last thing), 1/2 lb. best vanilla chocolate grated and heated in oven, then beaten up in the butter with 3 oz. dried flour, 1/2 lb. sifted sugar, 4 oz. ground almonds, 1 teaspoon of sal volatile. Bake in a slack oven, then ice with a thin soft icing flavored with maraschino. If ingredients are thoroughly beaten up it will be very light.

MODERN METHOD
1. Preheat oven to 350°F / 175°C. Line a 9-inch round cake pan with parchment and butter the bottom and sides of the pan. Then dust with a mixture of flour and sugar and coat the entire pan, tapping out the excess.
2. In a bowl, combine the flour, almond flour, baking powder, and salt. Whisk gently to blend.
3. Melt the chocolate either in a microwave oven or in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water. Set aside to cool.
4. Separate the eggs into two bowls. Beat yolks to blend, then stir in the vanilla. Whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks form.
5. In a bowl, cream together the butter and superfine sugar until mixed. Mix in the melted chocolate. Mix in a spoonful of the flour mixture to prevent curdling, then gradually beat in the egg yolk mixture. Gradually fold in the remaining flour mixture. Add about one-fourth of the beaten egg whites, folding in just until no white streaks remain. Fold in the remaining egg whites the same way. Spoon the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top.
6. Place cake in oven and turn temperature down to 250°F/120°C. Bake until the cake begins to pull away from the sides of the pan and a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean, about 75 - 90 minutes. Let cool completely in the pan on a wire rack, then turn out onto the rack and peel off the parchment. Turn the cake upright and serve plain or with icing.
7. If making the icing, put the powdered sugar into a bowl, whisk in enough of the liqueur to make a soft pourable icing, and pour over the cake or, make a stiffer icing, and spread on with an offset spatula.

SOURCES

Send mail to:
Tasting History
22647 Ventura Blvd, Suite 323
Los Angeles, CA 91364

**Amazon offers a small commission on products sold through their affiliate links, so each purchase made from this link, whether this product or another, will help to support this channel with no additional cost to you.

#tastinghistory #foodhistory #birthdaycake

[kreuzlied]

Happy Birthday, and many happy returns of the day!

[britt]

"You know what? It's my birthday and I don't have to." The new and more reasonable version of "it's my party and I'll cry if I want to."

[junecooper]

THIS WAS THE CAKE MY GREAT AUNT WAS TALKING ABOUT. Years ago she told me about the time, when she was little (1920's decade), that she bought a cake for her father's (my great grandfather) birthday. And I laughed so hard, because she was trying to explain like "I bought a cake, but it wasn't like a cake like we have now, it didn't have all that cream and filling, and it was small, it wasn't a cake, but it was called a cake IT WAS A CAKE" and I was rolling in the floor laughing. How I miss my great aunt Mercedes, she was a great lady.

[MoleyMoleo]

"Icing on cakes, often make red with beats or green with parsley..."
"And that's why I'm choosing white icing."
Utterly brutal.

[fabrisseterbrugghe]

I've had actual hundred year old cake. One of the Guilds in the city of London had a festival to which Queen Victoria was invited. They kept one (giant) layer of the cake, sealed in marzipan, and when Queen Elizabeth II came to celebrate with them 100 years later, they served small pieces of the Queen Victoria cake. The people I was staying with knew that I loved cookery and history and brought one of the pieces home with them. It's surreal that Queen Victoria and I ate from the same cake.

[ericachacon]

For the life of me, I can't believe this isn't a show on the History Channel. It's so entertaining, educational, & addictive- I can never watch just one episode! Thank you for all the interesting recipes, & hard work on researching the background info! ☺️

[humanearthling]

I was given a reprint of Agnes Jekyll's cookbook. My favourite instruction for her is, "make a brown sauce, as you will" second only to when she tells you to have your Butler do it for you.

[EmmaLiza]

"They believed evil spirits had greater access to you on your birthday."
Me, vodka in hand: damn straight.

[zerowastecalifornia]

YouTube Recommendations at 2 Am: What does a 1920s BIRTHDAY CAKE taste like?
Me: I don't need sleep I need answers

[deezimmo]

In the 1970's, my younger sister decided to make a birthday cake for our mother. She pulled out a recipe and made a cake from scratch; for her, it was quite a lot of work. When she was finished, I walked into the kitchen and asked her why she did not use a box mix to make the cake. Her response was priceless, "there's a mix??!!"

[elizabetha.]

My mother, who passed away in 2001 (God rest her soul), was born on September 10, 1921. I’ll be making this cake to honor her memory on her 100th birthday in a few weeks. Thanks, Max!

[destrystarwiebelhaus]

My great grandmother told me that in the depression her mother would save sugar, flour, vanilla all year so every birthday she would make a cake. No gifts, but fresh baked cake was satisfying enough. The kids could not wait for someone's birthday to come around! When a birthday did come around, the neighborhood would wait around to get a big whiff of sweet cake baking. We take this kind of stuff for granted!

[HaydenX]

You can fix seized chocolate with either: a: boiling water, added a teaspoon at a time while stirring vigorously until once again creamy; or b: adding liqueur of a flavor agreeable for the chocolate (creme de cacao is the obvious choice, though creme de vanille, triple sec, coffee liqueur, amaretto, or creme de menthe are all reasonable choices that also diversify or amplify the flavor a bit). The reason it seizes is that the sugar and cacao come out of solution and form pseudo-crystals, and both a high temperature solvent (boiling water) or an emulsifying solvent (alcohol) will fix the mix. If you want to be even more adventurous with your cake, and make a more complex flavor, I suggest adding anisette (anise liqueur), limoncello (lemon liqueur) or sikkim (cardamom liqueur) right from the beginning (rather than waiting until you seize your chocolate). Adding a bit of alcohol at the beginning is a sort of seizure insurance, and also one of the reasons why creme de cacao is so commonly added to chocolates (why you see chocolate liqueur on the ingredients list).

[lemonyanemone]

Max: "What we're gonna do to the oven is a bit unorthodox."
Oven: *trembling in corner*

[SonOfFurzehatt]

Pro tip: If you do get water in your melted chocolate and it seizes, you can rescue it by slowly adding more water or milk and it will eventually liquify again.

It won't set hard, so it's no good for making decorations, but it's still fine for making cake, ganache frosting, truffle filling, etc.

[newberley]

In addition to making history fun, Max is a terrific comedian. Really dry humor. He needs his own comedy show.

[ActuallyJozu]

Based on that quote about them eating "little solid food", perhaps the Persians would eat a lot of saffron rice pudding called sholeh zard. Traditionally it was only served on special occasions, so probably birthdays. I wonder if they would've had some sort of halva then.

[SgtPepper]

The hardest part about making a hundred year old birthday cake is waiting a hundred years

[halu]

To anyone who's wondering, the reason you put in ⅓ or ¼ of your egg whites into the batter first instead of the whole lot is to "slacken" your mixture, it makes it looser and easier to mix the rest of the egg. Better to lose a lot of air from a portion of your egg whites, than a lot of air from all of them 😊

[victoriajeanleslie]

This is the kind of cake I grew up eating (I'm only 30) I miss my grandmother.
I remember her baking me two chocolate pies for my 20th birthday with elaborate pastry weaves on top.
She didn't cook much by that age but when she made an effort it blew your socks off ❤