Cookbooks are more than just kitchen guides. They are treasures to collect, offering a fascinating glimpse into the past while inspiring today’s meals. A freshly baked chocolate cake fills your home with this timelessly magical, alluring aroma. Across generations, this rich treat has been a symbol of celebration.

Exotic Cooking 1940s Style
The 1947 Bern School Cookbook’s baking instructions - “bake at low heat” - reflect an era where ovens lacked precision dials, and cooks relied on instinct. Oven thermometers were still a rarity.  However, the book delves into the origins of its ingredients. “The cocoa tree grows in the jungles of Central and South America”, it explains, lending this recipe an air of luxurious exotic home baking:
 

CHOCOLATE CAKE

Ingredients:

100 g butter

250 g sugar

2 eggs

100 g hazelnuts

3 spoons of chocolate powder

1 spoon of cocoa powder

1 cup of milk

250 g of flour

1 packet of baking powder

(Paidol is a highly nutritional durum wheat semolina)

Method:

Heat the mixing bowl slightly and stir the butter until soft and smooth. Cream the butter with sugar, then add the eggs, nuts, chocolate and cocoa powder. Mix the flour and baking powder, alternating with the milk. Pour into a greased and floured baking tin. Bake in a preheated oven at low heat. Baking time: 3/4 to 1 hour

by Gisela van Bulck

There is no need to speculate about oven temperatures. This Dutch oven cake is cooked on the stovetop!
Click the link for the recipe.  Stovetop Dutch Oven Cake

This article is part two of a series of four. Each is linked to the series Pampering our Palates. Nostalgic Nibbles II is a  sub-article connected to Pampering our Palates "Chocolate"