The Earliest Published Chocolate Cake Recipe Was In 1847 Do we need a birthday, wedding or anniversary to have chocolate cake? Not on January 27, because it’s National Chocolate Cake Day. 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. Unlike chocolate cakes we know today, this recipe used chopped chocolate. Other cooks of the time such as Sarah Tyson Rorer and Maria Parloa all made contributions to the development of the chocolate cake and were prolific authors of cookbooks. The Duff Company of Pittsburgh, a molasses manufacturer, introduced Devil’s food chocolate cake mixes in the mid 1930s, but introduction was put on hold during World War II. Duncan Hines introduced a “Three Star Special” (because a white, yellow or chocolate cake could be made from the same mix) was introduced three years after cake mixes from General Mills. The first French word for chocolate mousse translates in English “chocolate mayonnaise” The “blood” that you see in infamous “shower scene” in Psycho is actually chocolate syrup. The history of chocolate cake goes back to 1764, when Dr. James Baker discovered how to make chocolate by grinding cocoa beans between two massive circular millstones. A process for making silkier and smoother chocolate called conching was developed in 1879 by Swiss Rodolphe and made it easier to bake with chocolate as it amalgamates smoothly and completely with cake batters. In the U.S.A, “chocolate decadence” cakes were popular in the 1980s; in the 1990s, single-serving molten chocolate cakes with liquid chocolate centers and infused chocolates with exotic flavors such as tea, curry, red pepper, passion fruit, and champagne were popular. In 1828 Conrad Van Houten of the Netherlands made a mechanical extraction method for taking away the fat from cacao liquor resulting in cacao butter and the mostly de-fatted cacao. It was a compacted mass of solids that could be sold as it was “rock cacao” or ground into powder. The processes made chocolate from an luxury to an cheap daily snack. A process for making smoother chocolate called conching was made in 1879 by Swiss Rodolphe and made it easier to bake with chocolate as it “amalgamates smoothly and completely with cake batters.” Until 1890 to 1900 chocolate recipes were mostly for drinks. In the U.S., chocolate decadence cakes were popular in the 1980s; in the 1990s, single-serve chocolate cakes with liquid chocolate centers were popular..