Rich, dark, addictive, soft, creamy, and most importantly: filled with layers of chocolate flavor. This Brooklyn Blackout Cake is so dark you might think that’s where the name comes from. But, that’s only part of the story of this phenomenal vintage cake.

In Brooklyn Ebinger’s Bakery churned out this amazing cake in the first half of the 1900s, filled with dark chocolate pudding and a rich frosting on top that complimented the moist cake under it all. The bakery was a mom and pop place opened by German immigrants in 1898. But, this popular bakery was next to the Brooklyn Navy Yard and in the 1940s after the US joined World War II this area underwent mandatory blackouts to protect the naval equipment from potential threats. Now blackouts weren’t a common event all over the US during WWII, but they certainly did happen on the coasts where there was a increased threat.

This recipe, while very rich, does use water and coffee for various steps of the process. This is because milk wouldn’t have been as easy to get in the city during the shortages caused by the war and rationing. It was nowhere near as bad as in the UK and Europe, but there were shortages. Just like during the Great Depression, cities were hit harder for dairy shortages than rural areas since people living in the country had access to their own cows or had neighbors with dairy cows.

This cake does have quite a few steps because it was developed at a bakery. But, if you have a few goodies in the pantry you can simplify the process quite a bit. This recipe calls for making your own pudding filling and while I love the flavor this gives, you can use boxed instant chocolate pudding to make the whole thing go a lot quicker.

Use either chocolate fudge or dark chocolate pudding flavors to most closely replicate the deep flavor of the original from-scratch pudding.

And, if you want to save some time for the cake crumbs you can blitz some Oreos or other chocolate sandwich cookies in the food processor instead of making some extra cupcakes and then crumbling those. The flavor will be slightly different, but still quite good.

Once you have the pudding in between the cake layers and on the edges it’s time to make a mess. This cake requires you to get those cake crumbs to stick to the sides of the cake. This is easier said than done and it reminded me of playing in the dirt as a kid. Prepare to get a little messy and clean up the loose crumbs before moving onto the frosting.

The frosting only goes on the top of this cake and you follow that with some more of those moist cake crumbs. You can dig in at this point, but this pudding cake is best served cold to keep it stable. Plus, there’s nothing quite as satisfying as chomping down into some cold chocolate frosting.

This Brooklyn Blackout Cake hasn’t been served by Ebinger’s in decades since they closed down in 1972. There are still some New York bakeries that make this cake, but if you’re not headed to the Big Apple anytime soon why not make it yourself and enjoy the deep, rich flavor from the comfort of home.