Well, hello! This week we have a recipe that I kind of tested, but also may have had to substitute 1/3 of the ingredients for other stuff. Because that is how I prepare, apparently.
This is Chocolate Prune Cake!!!
AuthorRetroRuth
From Prunes For Epicures, 35 Intriguing Recipes - United Prune Growers of California, 1933
Tested Recipe!
Pit prunes and cut into small pieces. Cream shortening and sugar thoroughly. Melt chocolate over hot water and add to creamed mixture; mix, add well-beaten eggs, and mix again.
Sift flour with baking powder, salt and baking soda and add alternately with milk, a small amount at a time. Add prunes and vanilla and beat thoroughly.
Pour into three greased layer cake tins and bake 25 to 30 minutes in a 375 degree oven. Put layers together and spread top and sides with chocolate butter frosting.
Yield: Serves 12
Substitutions: I subbed shortening with butter, granulated sugar with brown sugar, baking chocolate with dark chocolate, and milk with buttermilk
I baked them as mini bundts in a 350-degree oven for 20 minutes.
Ingredients
Directions
Pit prunes and cut into small pieces. Cream shortening and sugar thoroughly. Melt chocolate over hot water and add to creamed mixture; mix, add well-beaten eggs, and mix again.
Sift flour with baking powder, salt and baking soda and add alternately with milk, a small amount at a time. Add prunes and vanilla and beat thoroughly.
Pour into three greased layer cake tins and bake 25 to 30 minutes in a 375 degree oven. Put layers together and spread top and sides with chocolate butter frosting.
Yield: Serves 12
Substitutions: I subbed shortening with butter, granulated sugar with brown sugar, baking chocolate with dark chocolate, and milk with buttermilk
I baked them as mini bundts in a 350-degree oven for 20 minutes.
So, as I mentioned above, this recipe was about two missing ingredients away from being a disaster. I realized as soon as I started making this that I was going to have to sub a lot of ingredients. And we weren’t getting a grocery delivery until the next day, so if I was going to make any cake that day, I was going to make it with substitutions.
So, I had to sub brown sugar for white sugar, butter for shortening, buttermilk for milk, and dark chocolate for baking chocolate.
The only one I was nervous about was the brown sugar, but I’ve seen lots of vintage chocolate cake recipes with brown sugar in them, so I figured it was worth a shot.
This is a bunch of cooked prune goo. So…I didn’t have to sub that.
Oh, and the reason I was so worried about using the brown sugar was that I wanted to make a chocolate prune lamb!! You know, a lamb cake that keeps you regular?
Anyway, when this recipe was chosen by the patrons over on Patreon, a vision of chocolate prune lamb cake appeared in my mind. And I have enough experience with weird food visions at this point that I knew the only way to get rid of it was to make it.
And it woooooorrrked!!!!! It worked! I couldn’t believe it. I think I even nerdily high-fived myself.
Here he is! Cooled and sitting up and full of prunes.
But you have to wait until next week to see him all gussied up with frosting and sprinkles. For now, we are stuffing cake in Tom’s face.
“What’s that face? Is it bad?”
“No, it’s actually good. It’s moist. It just doesn’t have a lot of flavor.”
The Verdict: Good!
From The Tasting Notes –
I don’t think that I’m qualified at this point to say whether or not this cake worked, because I goofed it up with all my substitutions. BUT I feel like if I would have used baking chocolate, and possibly added an extra ounce of said chocolate, this would have had a much better chocolate flavor. And it maybe needed more vanilla. In terms of the prunes, you really couldn’t even taste them. On the structural end of things, this was a bouncy and moist cake, and it actually was a good cake for molded cake pans! I made mini bundts, which are kind of finicky, AND a lamb and both turned out really well. I actually turned the baby bundt pan upside down and the little prune cakes just fell out. So, that’s a win. And that is why I didn’t just scrap this whole post, because I felt like this cake has potential. Let me know in the comments if you try this, with or without the subs, and let me know how it turns out!
“I had to substitute things because I couldn’t get the ingredients” seems pretty appropriate for a Depression-era recipe! I’m weirdly tempted by this, though I have other dried fruits and no prunes–I wonder if it’d work with other fruit?
This cake might be good with some spices added, or more chocolate like you suggested. (I am a chocolate cake purist and I feel that just a small amount of chocolate in a cake is a travesty – so I’m not keen on red velvet.)
I bet it would!! I bet dried cherries would be ammmaaaaazing!!
Yes! Team dark chocolate cake forever!
The mini-Bundts look like donuts. Seems like they would be a good breakfast treat.
I think it would be awesome with dates, more chocolate, and a smidge of espresso powder.
They were!!
That lamb is a thing to behold!
I have a big bag of prunes, but the wrong kind of flour (only all purpose or bread right now), no milk, no shortening (but I do have butter) and only semi-sweet morsels. I am giggling to myself as I imagine the epic fail I’d end up with.