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  • 00:00

    Hi everyone and welcome to Tasting History. Today is my birthday and so I

  • 00:05

    thought it would be great to make a birthday cake, and not just any birthday

  • 00:08

    cake but a chocolate cake from Agnes Jekyll's Kitchen Essays published in

  • 00:13

    1922. Eee I thought it would be fun to try a cake that could have been served

  • 00:17

    to someone celebrating their birthday in 1918 during the Spanish flu pandemic

  • 00:22

    seeing as we're in quarantine in 2020 during our own pandemic, and this recipe

  • 00:28

    from 1922 is the closest I could find. We'll also take a look at the history of

  • 00:32

    birthday cakes, and why oh why we put candles on them, so get ready to make a

  • 00:37

    hundred-year-old birthday cake this time on Tasting History.

  • 00:47

    To make Agnes Jekyll's chocolate cake you'll need one cup, or 226 grams of

  • 00:52

    butter at room temperature, plus a little more for the pan, then 90 grams of flour,

  • 00:57

    225 grams of superfine sugar, 115 grams of almond flour, 225 grams of bittersweet

  • 01:05

    chocolate, 6 eggs, 1 tsp of baking powder, a pinch of salt, and 1 teaspoon of pure

  • 01:11

    vanilla extract. Now the icing for this cake is completely optional but if you

  • 01:15

    are going to make it you'll need 115 grams of powdered sugar, plus a couple

  • 01:19

    tablespoons of either cherry, or orange flavored liqueur. First pre-heat your

  • 01:23

    oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit, or 175 Celsius, then butter the bottom of a 9

  • 01:29

    inch cake pan. Either a plain round cake pan or springform pan works for this.

  • 01:33

    Then line it with parchment and butter the paper and the sides of the pan as

  • 01:37

    well, then dust the inside with a little bit of flour, and a little bit of sugar

  • 01:40

    just enough to coat the insides of the pan. In a bowl combine the flour, the

  • 01:45

    almond flour, the baking powder, and the salt and whisk everything together. Then

  • 01:52

    we're gonna melt the chocolate, one of my

  • 01:54

    least favorite things to do because I

  • 01:55

    screw it up all the time. You can either melt it in the microwave,

  • 01:58

    or as Agnes Jeckle would have put it into a heat proof bowl, and set that bowl

  • 02:03

    over a pot of simmering water. This is where I tend to screw it up, if you get

  • 02:07

    even one drop of water in that bowl with the chocolate the chocolate will seize

  • 02:12

    up as soon as it melts, and there is no bringing it back through anything less

  • 02:16

    than pure alchemy. So make sure that bowl is dry. Once the chocolate is melted set

  • 02:21

    it aside to cool, then it's time to separate the eggs, another one of my less

  • 02:26

    favorite activities. Put the yolks into a medium bowl, then beat them briefly just

  • 02:30

    to blend, and stir in the vanilla. Put the egg whites into a large bowl and then

  • 02:35

    with either a whisk, or a handheld mixer mix on medium high until you get nice

  • 02:40

    stiff peaks. Now that the chocolate is melted and the eggs are separated you're

  • 02:44

    done with the hardest parts of this recipe, so take a moment to relax, pat

  • 02:48

    yourself on the back, hit that Like button, and have a listen to why exactly

  • 02:52

    we have birthday cake.

  • 02:53


  • 02:57

    "Of all the days in the year the one

  • 02:59

    they celebrate the most is their birthday it is customary to have the

  • 03:04

    board furnished on that day with an ampler supply than common they eat

  • 03:08

    little solid food but abundance of dessert which is set on a table a few

  • 03:12

    dishes at a time." Now this is what Herodotus wrote of the Persians in 430

  • 03:17

    BC and frankly it sounds a lot like the way that I celebrate a birthday today,

  • 03:21

    with a lot of food and a lot of dessert, but exactly what were those Persian

  • 03:25

    desserts? Well we don't know but they probably weren't cake or at least

  • 03:29

    nothing like we would call cake today. For that we've gotta visit ancient Rome.

  • 03:34

    In ancient Rome if you were male, sorry ladies, and were rich (Oh count me out ) and

  • 03:39

    had political power and were turning 50 not quite there yet

  • 03:44

    then you got a birthday cake. Now this was probably a yeasted cake of nuts and

  • 03:48

    honey, and would not be recognized by the greater cake societies of today but it

  • 03:53

    was in the strictest of terms the first birthday cake, but seeing as like 99% of

  • 03:58

    the population didn't get one I'm curious when does a pleb like me get a

  • 04:01

    birthday cake. For that we looked to the Germans. In 15th century Germany, bakeries

  • 04:07

    saw the celebratory potential and the financial benefit of selling cakes on

  • 04:11

    people's birthdays. These were dense small single layer cakes with very

  • 04:15

    little sugar because the ingredient was so expensive then, but if you had any

  • 04:19

    money at all they became a must on your birthday. Now the cake we're making today

  • 04:24

    is also a single layer cake, but it isn't dense ,it isn't small and it definitely

  • 04:29

    doesn't skimp on the sugar. So now it's time to take that sugar, and put it into

  • 04:33

    a bowl with the butter, and cream them together until nice and fluffy. You can

  • 04:37

    use a stand mixer or a handheld mixer or a wooden spoon just like Agnes Jeckle

  • 04:42

    would have done. I was thinking of actually trying it with a wooden spoon,

  • 04:45

    but then I thought you know what it's my birthday and I don't have to. Once the

  • 04:49

    butter and sugar mixture is nice and fluffy add in your melted chocolate, and

  • 04:52

    beat until well mixed then take a spoonful of the flour

  • 04:56

    mixture, and mix that in as well that's going to stop the eggs from curdling

  • 05:00

    when we put them in. Which we're about to do, so add in your egg yolk mixture first,

  • 05:04

    and beat those in then add in the rest of the flour

  • 05:07

    mixture. Now this should be done by hand because you don't want to overwork the

  • 05:11

    flour, or else you're gonna get a tough cake. Once the flour is incorporated take

  • 05:15

    a quarter of the egg whites and fold them in gradually. This definitely needs

  • 05:21

    to be done by hand or else you're going to knock out the air, and you won't get a

  • 05:24

    nice rise to the cake. Once no streaks remain fold in the remaining egg whites

  • 05:28

    the same way, then spoon the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top now

  • 05:35

    it's time to put the cake in the oven, but hold on because what we're gonna do

  • 05:39

    to the oven is a little unorthodox. In Agnes Jekyll's original recipe she calls

  • 05:43

    for the cake to be baked in a slack oven, so what is a slack oven? A slack oven is

  • 05:48

    actually a cooling oven so in the days before modern ovens you would heat the

  • 05:53

    oven to its top temperature using either coal, or wood and then bake the day's

  • 05:57

    bread at that high heat. The bread needed the high heat to rise properly then as

  • 06:02

    the oven cooled down you can make things like puddings, or pies, or crackers, or

  • 06:06

    cakes. So we put the cake in the oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit but as soon as

  • 06:11

    you close that door turn the oven down to 250 or 120 degrees Celsius. It makes

  • 06:16

    it so instead of 30 or 40 minutes in the oven you're gonna leave it in there for

  • 06:19

    between an hour and 15 minutes, and an hour and a half so that gives us plenty

  • 06:24

    of time to head back to ancient Greece and find out why exactly we put candles

  • 06:29

    on birthday cakes.

  • 06:33


  • 06:36

    Now in ancient Greece if you were about to pray to Artemis, but

  • 06:38

    you wanted that prayer to go to the front of the line you better get your

  • 06:41

    butt down to the temple with a cake, and a candle because in

  • 06:45

    addition to her vast goddess resume Artemis was the goddess of the moon so a

  • 06:51

    lit candle would make that round cake glow like the moon. Then once the flame

  • 06:55

    went out, the smoke would carry your prayer up to the lady herself. Now if you

  • 06:59

    want your candles specifically for birthday cakes you've got to go back to

  • 07:03

    Germany where the birthday cake craze hit its peak in the early 18th century

  • 07:07

    with kinderfest. Kinderfest, or child party, was the beginning of children's

  • 07:12

    birthday parties. The morning of your kid's birthday you take out the cake and

  • 07:16

    put a candle in for each year that they were alive, plus one more in

  • 07:19

    the hopes that they make it to their next birthday, how bleak. Throughout the

  • 07:23

    day the family would keep the candles burning switching them out as needed,

  • 07:26

    because it was thought that the flames kept bad spirits away, and it was thought

  • 07:30

    that evil spirits had higher accessibility to a person on their

  • 07:33

    birthday, but once dinner had passed I guess all

  • 07:38

    the spirits lost their power, and the kid could blow out the candles and eat his

  • 07:41

    dessert. Now I'm not a child so I wouldn't have been part of that cake

  • 07:45

    tradition, but adults were about to get in on that candle covered cake

  • 07:49

    convention when in 1746 Count Ludwig von Zinzendorf celebrated his birthday

  • 07:54

    with a cake as large as any oven could be found to bake it ,and holes made in

  • 08:00

    the cake according to the years of the person's age everyone having a candle

  • 08:03

    stuck into it, and one in the middle it said that the cake was in the shape of a

  • 08:08

    giant L, and he had two foot tall letters sticking out of it to spell out the name

  • 08:12

    Ludwig. I want that for me and my name is only three letters, but again I probably

  • 08:18

    would not get that because I am NOT a German Count, instead I'll have to wait

  • 08:23

    until the Industrial Revolution makes it so ingredients are cheap enough for

  • 08:27

    everyone to get a birthday cake. Now just like Count Zinzendorf, people loved to

  • 08:32

    have writing on their cakes albeit not two-foot tall letters. Now the cake

  • 08:36

    probably wouldn't have said happy birthday because that phrase didn't

  • 08:39

    become popular until the song was recorded in 1912, instead you would have

  • 08:43

    had something like many happy returns of the day. Not quite as pithy but it works.

  • 08:48

    It was the Victorian age that also brought us the convention of colored

  • 08:51

    icing on cakes often made red with beet juice, or green

  • 08:54

    with parsley and that's why I'm choosing white icing which is what's called for

  • 08:58

    in this recipe. Now after about an hour and 15 minutes the cake should be ready

  • 09:02

    to take out of the oven. The cake will either pull away from the sides of the

  • 09:05

    pan, or if you stick a wooden skewer in the middle it should come out clean. Take

  • 09:10

    the cake out of the oven, and set on a wire rack allowing to cool in the pan

  • 09:13

    completely. Once cooled take it out of the pan and remove the parchment. At this

  • 09:18

    point it's either ready to eat uniced, or time to make the icing. For that all

  • 09:23

    you have to do is take your confectioner sugar, and whisk it with the liqueur

  • 09:26

    until smooth then spread across the top of the cake. Then we light the candles, wish

  • 09:31

    ourselves a happy quarantine birthday blow 'em out, and cut our cake. Now let's

  • 09:37

    see how this hundred-year-old cake tastes. Hm Hm, very chocolatey which I

  • 09:46

    love. Delicious, light, not too dense, kudos. Thank You Agnes Jeklyll for a

  • 09:54

    wonderful birthday cake. Now please look away while I intend to eat this entire

  • 09:58

    thing by myself, and I will see you next time on Tasting History,

All

The example sentences of CONFECTIONER in videos (1 in total of 1)

you personal pronoun have verb, non-3rd person singular present to to do verb, base form is verb, 3rd person singular present take verb, base form your possessive pronoun confectioner noun, singular or mass sugar noun, singular or mass , and coordinating conjunction whisk verb, base form it personal pronoun with preposition or subordinating conjunction the determiner liqueur noun, singular or mass

Use "confectioner" in a sentence | "confectioner" example sentences

How to use "confectioner" in a sentence?

  • A writer is not a confectioner, a cosmetic dealer, or an entertainer.
    -Anton Chekhov-

Definition and meaning of CONFECTIONER

What does "confectioner mean?"

/kənˈfekSH(ə)nər/

noun
person whose trade is making or selling confectionery.