NATIONAL CHOCOLATE CAKE DAY
A little of Peabody's Improbable History.
In America, chocolate was consumed primarily as a beverage until the 1830s or 40s. Chocolate cakes, as we think of them today, mostly did not exist then. According to the Dover Post, the chocolate cake was born in 1765 when a doctor and a chocolate maker teamed up in an old mill. They ground up cocoa beans between huge millstones to make a thick syrup. The liquid was poured into molds shaped like cakes, which were meant to be transformed into a beverage.
A popular Philadelphia cookbook author, Eliza Leslie, published the earliest chocolate cake recipe in 1847 in The Lady’s Receipt Book. The first boxed cake mix was created by a company called O. Duff and Sons in the late 1920s. Betty Crocker released their first dry cake mixes in 1947.
Unfortanately, I love chocolate in just about any shape/form, including double and triple chocolate cakes. I know dark chocolate is an anti-oxidant, as is kale. Hmmm. A bowl of kale or a plate of rich chocolate cake with chocolate icing. Tough choice. Anyone care to help me make that choice?
