Dressel’s Chocolate Fudge Whipped Cream Cake

This beautiful cake is our family-birthday must. After I researched this story about it and developed the recipe, with input from the Dressel family, the Chicago Tribune ran a little feature on my work, and–I’m pleased to say, liked it as much as we do : )

Here’s the original story…

There’s no clue that the breezy, grass-covered, empty lot at 66^th and Ashland was once the master plant of Chicago’s most famous bakery, or, that the red brick storefront at 33^rd and Wallace was its first location. Although gone without a trace, Dressel’s Bakery was for 60-plus years the maker of Chicago’s beloved Chocolate Fudge Whipped Cream Cake. Layers of chocolate fudge cake stacked around a full inch of whipped cream with light-chocolate buttercream on top and a crushed-nut garnish, Dressel’s “CFWCC” was a classic favorite. It outsold all other Dressel’s cakes at a ratio of 60% chocolate fudge, to 40% everything else.

The story of that cake is the story of three brothers and a hard-working immigrant family.First farmers in Barrington, (after coming to America from Germany in the early 1900s,) the two older brothers—Joe & Bill—were initiated into baking by their uncle Lorenz Nock who operated a bakery in Bridgeport at 33^rd & Wallace. Joe & Bill bought the business in 1913 while they were still teens. Younger brother Herman pretty much grew up there, working full-time in the bakery by the time he was 14, and becoming a partner in the business in 1923.

To Joe & Bill’s sales-, production- and people-skills, Herman—who was in charge of cakes–added his friendly nature, innovator’s spark and artistic skills, proposing the idea of a whipped cream cake in the early ’20s. It was a smash hit. By 1929, it took two policemen to handle the Saturday crowds lined up down the sidewalk and Dressel’s was selling $2,000 to $3,000 worth of the cakes in a day, priced at 60-cents, 75-cents and $1.00. The volume built to 10,000 cakes a week by the ‘40s, with ten phone lines to take orders. To handle that kind of demand, the Dressel’s started experimenting with freezing the layers of the cakes before WWII.

Figuring out how to formulate the cake so that thawed, it would remain moist and light, took innovation. In-the-shell eggs all came from one farm, butter from one supplier, and the cream—the heart of the cake—was brought in from dairies and pasteurized on site. Understanding the importance of that cream layer, Herman Dressel studied breeds of cow and the grasses they were fed, in order to hone in on the cream he preferred (from Wisconsin Holsteins.) Dressel used the highest-butterfat content cream and then actually added butter to the cream in a proprietary reverse process he developed that was only used at Dressel’s.

Other early innovations included incorporating very-finely-crushed carrot pulp into the fudge cake layers for greater moisture retention. As well, cake layers were made with oil, rather than butter, so that when chilled, the layers would would melt-in-the-mouth more easily. The buttercream was whipped with a percentage of vegetable shortening which volume-ized better for a lighter mouth feel than pure-butter buttercream. And the whipped cream was stabilized (given more firmness) with the addition of agar-agar, a vegetable-based gelatin. (Most of these processes were used until sometime after American Bakeries bought the company in 1963.)

While Dressel’s cake was a production cake, which means that home-baking won’t perfectly emulate Dressel’s techniques —Lost Recipes Found worked with members of the Dressel’s family to create a home-cook version of the cake the Dressels approved. Most important? Dan Dressel stresses that each layer of cake and whipped cream must be exactly the same thickness. As well, the buttercream must not be too thick. “My dad worked very hard to ensure that when you took a bite of the cake, the flavors and textures were perfectly balanced,” says Dan.

Dressel’s Chocolate Fudge Whipped Cream Cake – Lost Recipes Found (2024)