Chocolate cake recipe with secret ingredient: sauerkraut! (Wild, Wacky and Wonderful)

Ingredients for wacky and wild cake, familiar except for one

I LOVE chocolate cake.

I am also very fond of sauerkraut (Reuben sandwiches are my favorite).

But, sauerkraut in chocolate cake???  I never put the two together - that is, until this weekend. And *spoiler alert* it was delicious.

Last week, Pam (birthday twin/BTS member) gifted me a vintage recipe book with local roots:  "Recipes from the Tower Kitchen" via the Detroit Free Press.  Published in 1973, it was still part of the "Welcome Wagon's" offering to new residents of southeast Michigan a few decades later. That's how it made its way to Pam. Seeing a page devoted to "When Your Sugar Comes to Tea", my fellow Aries thought I'd find this collection interesting. 

Sauerkraut chocolate cake recipe from the Tower Kitchen (circa 1973)

And, I did. While the tea recipes offered more holiday-type fare (e.g., eggnog cookies, angel kisses) which I will revisit come December, another page caught my attention:  "Wild, Wacky and Wonderful". The very first recipe under this heading is the aforementioned sauerkraut chocolate cake. However, before I went grocery shopping, before I creamed the butter, before I poured the batter into the pan, I already knew the recipe was both wild and wacky, but wonderful? That was yet to be determined.

Cheerfully blending cake batter before the "secret ingredient".

In preparation of this curious cake, I did a little on-line research to see if there were any other similar recipes or stories of origin. Surprisingly, I found quite a few of both, but hit a true treasure of sauerkraut cake backstory courtesy Atlas Obscura in an article from just last November ("Who Decided to Put Sauerkraut in Chocolate Cake?").  This published piece not only lays out tales of the cake's beginnings (partially debunking them as well), but it cites two recipe sources: The New York Times, 1981, "Sauerkraut Kuchen" and a 1973 edition of Recipes from the Tower Kitchen from Detroit.  And, now the latter is in my possession. The only thing more incredulous than that recent discovery was (*dramatic pause*) putting sauerkraut in cake batter.

It was now time put this recipe to the test in the BTS' test kitchen.

We gathered the ingredients - all of which would be familiar to most bakers of cakes and cookies, except for that one glaring can of fermented cabbage. 

A moment of hesitation before adding the sauerkraut to the sweet cake batter

We melted the butter, whisked the eggs, and slowly stirred in the cocoa and cake flour, but when it came time to finally add the sauerkraut, we did hesitate for just a minute. Is it really a good idea to dump that savory, chopped vegetable into a bowl of sugary deliciousness? Again, I see "wacky" and "wild", but "wonderful"?

It's done. No turning back now. . . 

The proof was in the pudding. . . or, more precisely, the sauerkraut chocolate cake.

And . . .  it was wonderful! 

Per the Tower Kitchen's suggestion, we paired the cake with chocolate fudge frosting, although, their cookbook included no such recipe. We found ours at the Cookie Rookie's site.

As to the taste of the cake? It was delicious - the sauerkraut not only made the cake moist but balanced the sweetness as well. My husband, Chris, a tremendous cook with a discriminating palate, immediately described it as having "depth".  

How spot on! According to the Atlas Obsurca article, prior to the invention of baking soda (1856),  cooks relied on acidity to lift their cakes, so "using a sour product of fermentation to add to the rising cake would not be as strange as it seems". In addition, "the fermentation process adds a subtle depth of flavor [to] the finished cake".

Final step before sampling:  adding the chocolate fudge frosting

So, there you have it, a tasty, wacky, wild, and wonderful cake with depth. But, that leaves us with one last ponder:  how much "depth"?

The Tower Kitchen recipe called for only a half cup of sauerkraut. The recipe listed in the Atlas Obscura article calls for one cup. And, Pam just sent me another recipe (with historical ties) that requires TWO cups. Will the struggle we faced adding a mere half cup of fermented cabbage to cake batter intensify with these other recipes?

Sauerkraut chocolate cake: wonderful, with depth. Can we handle more?

We'll keep you posted. In the meantime, we're enjoying some hearty black tea and a wonderful cake with a secret wacky ingredient.  Shhhh!