The Mizpah Prayer and Devil's Food Cake - Fate Brought Them Together

While my cousin and her husband were here last month for their surprise visit from Colorado, she gave me the gift of an old recipe book, published in 1925 by one of the Circles of the Methodist Episcopal Church in St. Joseph, Illinois. The book had belonged to my aunt (my mother's sister) who gave it to my cousin's mother as a wedding gift (when she married my mother's brother). I'm thrilled to now have it in my little collection.

 

But what immediately caught my eye was the name of the Circle - The Mizpah Circle Ladies.

Was it fate?
In my mind, it was just that - an early connection to what would be my later,
very fortunate, fate - marrying my Jewish husband.
Mizpah is Hebrew for "watchtower," and is often related to Genesis 31:49.

"The Lord watch between me and thee

while we are absent, one from another."

I was taught by a Jewish friend, probably sometime in junior high school, that the verse was often referred to as the Mizpah Prayer.

I was drawn into the cookbook, because of it's connection to my own past; my mother having lived in Homer, Illinois right outside St. Joseph, and her oldest sister being the original owner of the book. But, in a way, that cookbook is also a part of my present.

So, lets' delve inside this no-nonsense, picture-less recipe book, and see what we can bake today. Each of the many recipes is nothing more than a paragraph. No list of ingredients, just the directions, and there are quite a few of them for Devil's Food Cake - so I picked one that was marked on the page. I'm thinking there must be a reason for it being marked. Perhaps after it's baked and frosted, we'll learn this is the best cake recipe ever. It comes to us compliments of one Mrs. Cynthia Fiock from St. Joseph, Illinois.

Devil's Food Cake - Cream one cup sugar and 1/2 cup butter together, then add two well-beaten eggs. 1/4 cup of cocoa in 1/2 cup boiling water; 1/2 teaspoon soda with 1/2 cup sour cream; 1 teaspoon Royal baking powder; 1 1/2 cups flour. Flavor with vanilla.

That's it -- that's all it says.
I'm guessing it goes into a 350-degree oven and I'm guessing it will either make two rounds or one 11X9-inch baking dish.
Let's give it a whirl and see.

I gathered the ingredients, but don't you do what I almost did and forget the vanilla flavoring.

Here's the creamed sugar/butter, the cocoa mixture and the beaten eggs.

I added the eggs and beat the mixture until it was fluffy. Then I added the cocoa mixture and beat well; added the baking soda, sour cream, baking powder, flour and about a teaspoon of vanilla and beat it on medium for about a minute.

I decided to use a prepared 11X9 baking dish.

It went into the oven at 350-degrees and took 25-minutes to bake.

 

 

I made half of a recipe for a classic chocolate frosting to top it:
1/2 cup softened butter, a couple tablespoons of cocoa and about a 1/2 box of 10X powdered sugar, with about 1/8th cup of milk and a teaspoon of vanilla.

It's delicious, moist, chocolaty and it's a recipe from a 1925 cookbook

that took only minutes to prepare - very easy.

I know, it's easier to pick up a box of cake mix, even easier to buy one already baked, but try this. I'm sure you'll like it.

Many of you have probably heard of a Mizpah coin. It's a gold heart inscribed with the Mizpah Prayer, but halved, so that each of the two persons can carry a piece of it. It's what I gave my husband as a wedding gift and we each carried our halves on our key-rings for many years. Today, neither of us knows what happened to them, sad, I know, but still it was a part of our lives.
And now, this little cookbook created by the Mizpah Circle Ladies of the Methodist Episcopal Church of St. Joseph, Illinois is also a part of my life - thanks to my cousin.

Here's a funny advertisement from the cookbook.

I love and miss you, Mom