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SALLY’S COCOA FUDGE CAKE

SEASON 1, EPISODE 7

“Red in the Face”

One evening after work, while having a drink at the Oak Bar (see Oak Bar Manhattan), Roger Sterling hints strongly to Don Draper that he’d enjoy a home-cooked meal; his wife, Mona, has mostly stopped cooking. Don takes the hint and phones Betty to tell her Roger will be joining them. She is caught unprepared but, when it’s 1960 and your husband tells you his boss is coming for dinner, you make do. As Roger and Don enjoy steak, green beans, and mashed potatoes, Betty nibbles at a salad. “You sure you won’t have some?” asks Roger. Betty assures him she has to watch what she eats because she was once overweight as a child.

Dessert is a chocolate cake, made by the Draper’s young daughter Sally, who, Betty tells Roger, just received a frosting machine. Written in frosting on the cake are the words “Mommy and Daddy.”

After dinner, and no small amount of vodka, Don suggests “a commercial break, brought to you by more liquor.” Many cigarettes are smoked and Roger begins to tell war stories, literally, of his time as a soldier in the Second World War. When Don heads out to the garage for another bottle of booze, Roger follows Betty into the kitchen.

“Sally will be happy her cake was such a hit,” says Betty.

Roger, never at a loss for a double entendre, replies, “Make sure you tell her I ate the ‘M’ in ‘Mommy,’” and with that makes a pass at Betty that she rebuffs.

This simple cake is adapted from Betty Crocker’s New Boys and Girls Cookbook (1965). The first edition appeared in 1957, and Sally might well have used both her new frosting machine and her Betty Crocker cookbook to whip up this sweet concoction. (We think it was the liquor, and not the cake, that put Roger in an amorous mood. It may have been a combination of the two, though, so serve wisely.)

Cocoa Fudge Cake

ADAPTED FROM BETTY CROCKER’S NEW BOYS AND GIRLS COOKBOOK (WESTERN PUBLISHING COMPANY, INC., 1965)

12⁄3 cups all-purpose flour

11⁄2 cups sugar

2⁄3 cups unsweetened cocoa powder

11⁄2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1⁄2 cup butter, softened

11⁄2 cups buttermilk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 eggs

Quick Fudge Frosting (see recipe opposite)

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour a 13 × 91⁄2 × 2-inch pan.
  2. Stir flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, and salt together in mixing bowl.
  3. Add butter, buttermilk, and vanilla. Beat for 2 minutes at medium speed using an electric mixer, or 300 strokes by hand. If you use an electric mixer, scrape the sides and bottom of bowl often with a rubber scraper.
  4. Add eggs. Beat for 2 minutes more, scraping bottom and sides of bowl often.
  5. Pour into prepared pan and bake for 25 minutes. Cool in pan on wire rack.
  6. Frost with Quick Fudge Frosting.

QUICK FUDGE FROSTING

1 cup granulated sugar

1⁄4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

4 tablespoons (1⁄4 cup) butter

1⁄2 cup milk

2 tablespoons light corn syrup

11⁄2 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

  1. Mix sugar and cocoa in medium saucepan. Add butter, milk, and corn syrup. Bring to a boil. Boil for 3 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat. Set pan in cold water.
  2. When the syrup is cool, stir in confectioners’ sugar and vanilla. If frosting is too thin, add a little more confectioners’ sugar and vanilla. If frosting is too thick, add a little more milk.

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BETTY’S COOKBOOKS

Two best-selling cookbooks of the 1960s appear regularly on Betty Draper’s kitchen counter: the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book, first published in 1930 and revised and republished in 1962, and Betty Crocker’s Hostess Cookbook, first published in 1967. Betty Crocker’s Hostess Cookbook didn’t exist when the first four seasons of Mad Men are set, but these two colorful books were in fact sensationally popular during the decade.

By 1962, the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book had sold more than 11 million copies. (It has today sold more than 40 million.) Its design was innovative. The pages were secured in a compact ringed binder so they could be removed and taken to the market. Sections were tabbed for easy use and it lay flat and stayed open, no small matter as anyone who has ever tried to prop a thick cookbook open on a counter can attest. The book’s red plaid cover itself has become an icon, and the book, now in its fifteenth edition, is sometimes referred to as the “Red Plaids.”

Betty Crocker’s Hostess Cookbook was one of many in the Betty Crocker series of cookbooks that were enormously popular in the mid-twentieth century. More than a cookbook, in one slim volume it promised to tell a housewife everything she needed to know about “today’s entertaining.” It was filled with information on party planning, presentation, and managing special situations such as cooking for dieters and children. Also spiral bound, it featured more than 400 recipes and promised to boost the confidence of women who were insecure about their culinary skills.

Betty Crocker, who came to embody the concept of the American housewife, was not a real person. The Washburn Crosby Company, a predecessor company to General Mills (which currently owns the Betty Crocker trademark and brand) first used the name “Betty Crocker” in 1921 as a way of personalizing answers to questions posed by consumers. “Crocker” was borrowed from one of the company’s directors, and the name “Betty” was selected because it was seen as uplifting and quintessentially American.

“So don’t let inexperience, shyness or a tiny kitchen stop you,” read a letter from the mythical Betty Crocker printed on the cookbook’s inside cover. “Pick a party, and start planning now. One star performance will lead to another, each a little easier and perhaps a bit more elaborate than the last. May every one be a smash hit!”