Arnold Zwicky's Blog

🐅 🐅 🐅 three tigers for ultimate November and the feast day of St. Andrew the Apostle, patron saint of 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 (and several other countries) and of fishermen, fishmongers, rope-makers, textile workers, singers, miners, pregnant women, butchers, farm workers. and more

A follow-up to my 11/28 posting “Today’s surprise etymology”, about the history of Jordan almond, which elicited a nice brief comment by David Preston about Baker’s Chocolate and German Chocolate Cake. Which I now elaborate on.

From Wikipedia on the first of these, which turns out to be the source of the other as well:

Baker’s Chocolate is a brand name for the line of baking chocolates … in 1780 [the Massachusetts company making the chocolates was named] the Baker Chocolate Company. [AZ: that is, the Baker’s of Baker’s chocolate is not, as you might reasonably have surmised, the (common) agent-noun baker turned into part of a proper name, as in Hatter’s shakes or Mad Hatter’s disease, a chronic mercury poisoning classically afflicting hatters; but is, instead, the surname Baker used in a company name, and then as part of the name of one of the company’s products, as in Hershey’s Chocolate, originating with Milton Hershey, the 1894 founder of the Hershey Company in Pennsylvania, which makes and markets the chocolate]

… By 1849 (under Walter Baker), the Baker’s Chocolate brand had spread to California during the Gold Rush era. Production was limited to one kind of chocolate until 1852, when employee Samuel German created “German’s Sweet Chocolate” that had a higher sugar content than previous baking chocolates. In 1957 a Dallas, Texas newspaper printed a cake recipe for “German’s Chocolate Cake” based on this chocolate. Subsequent reprints in other newspapers by the company’s owner General Foods named it “German chocolate cake”.

Now Wikipedia elaborating on the story of the second name:

German chocolate cake, originally German’s chocolate cake, is a layered chocolate cake filled and topped with a coconut-pecan frosting. Originating in the United States, it was named after English-American chocolate maker Samuel German, who developed a formulation of dark baking chocolate that came to be used in the cake recipe. Sweet baking chocolate is traditionally used for the cake’s flavor, but few recipes call for it today. The filling and/or topping is a custard made with egg yolks and evaporated milk; once the custard is cooked, coconut and pecans are stirred in. Occasionally, a chocolate frosting is spread on the sides of the cake and piped around the circumference of the layers to hold in the filling. Maraschino cherries are occasionally added as a garnish.

History: In 1957, a recipe for “German’s Chocolate Cake” appeared as the “Recipe of the Day” in The Dallas Morning News. It was created by Mrs. George Clay, a homemaker from Dallas, Texas, and used the “German’s Sweet Chocolate” baking chocolate introduced in 1853 by American baker Samuel German for the Baker’s Chocolate Company. A similar recipe by food conservationist Jackie Huffines had previously been featured on television. General Foods, which owned the Baker’s brand at the time, took notice and distributed the cake recipe to other newspapers in the country. Sales of Baker’s Chocolate are said to have increased by as much as 73% and the cake would become a national staple. The possessive form German’s was dropped in subsequent publications, forming the “German Chocolate Cake” identity and giving the false impression of a German origin.

Then, a final etymological twist, about the surnames Baker and German — the first historically derived from the occupational agent-noun baker, the second from the demonym German (referring to the placename Germany).

This entry was posted on November 30, 2024 at 9:10 am and is filed under Common & proper, Ethnonyms and demonyms, Etymology, Language and food, Names. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.