This recipe we’ve featured from the Seasons of Plenty: Amana Communal Cooking book is from after the Great Change. But as the note below explains, it’s still just as much a part of Amana history as the older recipes!

Mrs. Moershel’s White Chocolate Cake

⅓ pound white chocolate, broken into chunks
½ cup water
1 cup butter
2 cups sugar
4 eggs, separated
2 ½ cups cake flour, sifted
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ cup flaked coconut
1 cup chopped pecans or almonds

Preheat oven to 350°.

Place white chocolate and water in top of double boiler: heat over hot water until melted. Beat until blended; cool.

Cream butter and 1 ½ cups sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg yolks; beat thoroughly. Sift flour, baking powder, and salt. Add to creamed mixture in thirds alternately with buttermilk. Stir in vanilla and melted white chocolate, beating until smooth after every addition. Beat egg whites until soft peaks form; gradually add remaining ½ cup sugar and continue beating until stiff, but not dry. Fold into batter. Then gently fold in coconut and nuts.

Bake in a greased 9 x 13-inch baking pan for about 50 minutes.

Frost as desired but best if frosted with a butter frosting flavored with almonds and then sprinkled with finely chopped nuts.

Katherina Moreshel, Homestead

Note: This recipe was discovered by Mrs. Moershel sometime after the Great Change of 1932, which ended the communal era. With such costly ingredients, it would not have been a cake made by the very frugal communal cooks. It is, however, as much a part of Amana as any simple sponge cake, for Mrs. Moershel’s White Chocolate Cake made an appearance at two generations of weddings, funerals, and birthday celebrations.

---

This recipe comes from the cookbook Seasons of Plenty: Amana Communal Cooking and was posted with permission of author Emilie Hoppe. Learn more about the book and how to purchase it.