NATIONAL CHOCOLATE CAKE DAY - January 27th

It’s January 2023, and everyone is setting goals or making resolutions for the new year. 

I have decided to make just one: to try to eat less sweets. I discovered—well, not just recently discovered—I’m addicted to sweets and especially chocolate. I love all kinds of chocolate: milk, dark, white, semi-sweet, bitter sweet. And I’m not fussy whether they are in eatable or drinkable forms. I like candy, cakes, cookies, chocolate covered pretzels, hot chocolate and chocolate syrups. 

Chocolate come from cacao trees. These trees are relatively short, only growing to be about 15-25 feet tall. It takes about 5 years for a cacao tree to grow mature and start producing cacao pods. The beans grow in football-shaped pods on the trunk of the tree and from larger branches.

Chocolate has been part of American society for about 252 years. In America, chocolate was consumed primarily as a beverage until the 1830s or 40s. Chocolate cakes, as we think of them today, did not exist.

Imagine my surprise when I found out January 27^th is National Chocolate Cake Day in the United States, a nonofficial holiday to commemorate this delicious treat. 

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.

Since then, cake has its own category and is featured in recipes around the world. Who hasn’t heard of German chocolate or Black Forest cake? Chocolate fudge or molten lave cake? Texas sheet cake or chocolate truffle cake? There are even cakelike brownie recipes. 

Cocoa contains both healthy and unhealthy forms of dietary fat, and contains minerals important for human health, including potassium, phosphorus, copper, iron, zinc and magnesium. Some studies have found that regular chocolate consumption is associated with lower blood pressure, decreased stress levels, and increased alertness.   

And thus, because chocolate can be healthy was exactly why I modified my resolution not to give up all sweets, just to eat less of them. Hey, who am I kidding? A red box of deluxe chocolates sitting on my counter (a Christmas present from my son) is calling out to me this very moment. Maybe just a small piece wouldn’t hurt, would it?

Happy New Year! 

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ICE CREAM . . .in a cone, please.

Wafer Cones

July is the month to enjoy special summer treats like watermelon, key lime and peach pie, blueberry cobbler, strawberry shortcake—and ice cream, my favorite of all! Whether it’s a waffle cone, sugar cone or wafer cone, as long as it’s filled with ice cream, I’m in summer dessert heaven.

The first ice cream cone was produced in 1896 by Italo Marchiony, who emigrated from Italy in the late 1800s and invented his ice cream cone in New York City. He was granted a patent in December 1903, although July 23, 1904, is credited as the day and year the cone was invented.

  

Waffle Cone

A similar creation was independently introduced in 1904 at St. Louis World's Fair by Ernest A. Hamwi, a Syrian concessionaire. Hamwi was selling a crisp, waffle-like pastry called zalabis, in a booth right next to an ice cream vendor. When the ice cream vendor ran out of dishes, Hamwi saw an easy solution to the problem. He rolled one of his wafer-like waffles in the shape of a cone, or cornucopia, and gave it to the ice cream vendor. The cone cooled in a few seconds. The ice cream vendor loaded it with ice cream. The customers were happy. And the idea of an edible cone came into existence as part of our staple desserts in America.

 

Soon thereafter, ice cream cone businesses and factories sprung up creating all types of cones from the rolled cone which was  baked as a waffle to the batter-made molded ones.

What followed next were the many, many flavors of ice cream created to fill those wonderful, walk-around, funnel-like inventions. So when you buy or fill a cone with your favorite ice cream this summer, you’re eating a piece of history dating back over a century ago.

I have to admit, vanilla is still my favorite flavor of ice cream, followed by butter pecan—heaped in a sugar waffle cone. When you’re trying to beat the summer heat, do you have a favorite flavor and a special kind of cone you like the best?

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