Recipe: Chocolate Cake Supreme from food critic Duncan Hines in 1948

Before he started the boxed cake mix company, Duncan Hines (a real person) was a traveling salesman in the 1930's. Because a traveling salesman eats at a lot of places, he used that experience to became a food critic and write a guidebook of where to eat. He later started a newspaper column and wrote cookbooks. In the early 1950's he started the Duncan Hines food company.

This recipe is from 1948, from one of his newspaper columns, just before he started the Duncan Hines food company.

CHOCOLATE CAKE SUPREME
from food critic Duncan Hines in 1948

1/2 cup butter, softened
2 cups white granulated sugar
4 squares (1 ounce each) bitter chocolate (unsweetened baking chocolate)
2 egg yolks
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups cake flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups sweet milk (regular whole milk)
2 egg whites
Chocolate Frosting (recipe follows)

For the cake, cream together butter, sugar until you have a fluffy mass. Melt bitter chocolate in double boiler and add to above. Beat egg yolks, add vanilla to beaten yolks and add to above mixture.

Sift flour with baking powder and salt together 3 times. Beat egg whites stiff, and fold into mixture. Place in two 9-inch pans which have been greased, paper lined and lightly greased again.

Bake in 350 degrees F oven for 30 minutes or until done. Let cool before frosting.

CHOCOLATE FROSTING

2 beaten eggs (pasteurized)
2 lbs sifted confectioner's sugar
1/2 lb butter
4 squares (1 ounce each) bitter chocolate (unsweetened baking chocolate)
2 tsp lemon juice
2 tsp vanilla (extract)
3 tbsp cream
2 cups chopped nuts

Beat eggs well and gradually work in sifted sugar. Melt butter and chocolate together. Add to the above. Add lemon juice and vanilla and mix well. Add cream and mix. Fold in chopped nuts and spread on cake.

Makes 1 - two layer, frosted 9-inch cake.

Here's a link to the original recipe in the Milwaukee Journal, Oct 24, 1948 and can be accessed online in the Google newspaper archive.

Here's Duncan Hines biography in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duncan_Hines