Recipe

A Devil’s Food Cake for the Ages

This century-old dessert is still worthy of a celebration

Recipe by Anne Byrn

September 5, 2024

An aerial view of a triple-layer chocolate cake.

Photo: Rinne Allen

In 1906, Atholene Peyton, a Louisville home economist and high school teacher, wrote the earliest Black-authored Kentucky cookbook. Called the Peytonia Cook Book, it was groundbreaking, offering recipes for housewives as well as for domestic and restaurant workers. It included this decadent layer cake of brown sugar, unsweetened chocolate, and cream. Peyton unabashedly loaded this cake with chocolate at a time when home economists elsewhere were just tiptoeing around it. The crumb seems light, but don’t be fooled: this cake is wickedly rich. It’s a grand celebration cake, so spread it with your choice of a white or chocolate icing, or simply whipped cream. —Anne Byrn, from her new cookbook, Baking in the American South: 200 Recipes and Their Untold Stories.

Read our Q&A with Byrn here.

Ingredients

Atholene Peyton’s Devil’s Food Cake (Yield: 1 cake)
For the cake
- Vegetable shortening or butter, and parchment paper for prepping the pans
- 2¼ sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
- ¾ cup heavy cream
- ½ cup water or brewed coffee
- 4 oz. unsweetened or 72 percent cacao chocolate, chopped
- ½ cup unsweetened cocoa
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- ½ cup lightly packed light brown sugar
- 4 large eggs, at room temperature
- 1½ tsp. vanilla extract
- 1¾ cups cake flour
- 1 tsp. baking soda
- ¾ tsp. salt
For the chocolate fudge icing:
- 8 tbsp. (1 stick) unsalted butter
- ¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- Pinch of kosher or sea salt
- ⅓ cup whole milk, half-and-half, or coconut milk, or more as needed
- 2 to 3 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted

Preparation

Heat the oven to 350°F, with a rack in the middle. Grease the bottom of three 8-inch square or 9-inch round cake pans and line with parchment paper.

Place the butter, cream, and water or coffee in a medium saucepan over low heat until the butter melts, 2 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat.

Add the chopped chocolate and cocoa and stir until the chocolate melts. Stir in both sugars until combined. Whisk in one egg at a time and the vanilla until the mixture is smooth.

Whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl and whisk this mixture gradually into the batter until smooth. Divide the batter among the three pans and place in the oven. If your oven is not large enough to place three layers on one rack, place two on the center rack and one layer on the rack above, watching to make sure the top cake does not overbake.

Bake until the cakes spring back when lightly pressed in the center, 25 to 30 minutes. Remove to a wire rack to cool for 10 minutes. Run a knife around the edges of the pans and invert the cakes onto the rack to completely cool. Peel off the parchment paper.

Make the icing: Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over low heat, 2 to 3 minutes. Stir in the cocoa, salt, and milk, half-and- half, or coconut milk. Cook, stirring, until the mixture thickens and just begins to come to a boil, 1 minute longer.

Remove the pan from the heat. Stir in 2 cups of the confectioners’ sugar, a bit at a time, adding up to 1 cup more sugar or more milk (or half-and-half or coconut milk) if needed, until the frosting is smooth and just begins to thicken. It will set once it gets on a cake.

Assemble the cake: Place one layer on a serving plate. Spread with about ¾ cup icing. Place the second layer on top and repeat. Place the third layer on top and spread with frosting. If desired, spread frosting around the sides of the cake.