700 entries. Blue ribbon in Open Class baking, the pink is second place in Best of Class, Heritage Recipe.
The final recipe:
Essay
My grandmother baked this cake on special occasions. She had been a white-glove-wearing lady who did not know how to cook or clean before she married. But when she had heard enough from my grandfather about the chocolate cake that a friend’s wife made, she decided she would learn to bake one. If that woman could do it, it couldn’t possibly be too hard.
I knew Rosemary, my mom, had the recipe because I was there the day my grandmother wrote it down. She and Rose were talking about my oldest brother (who was a disappointment) as my grandmother wandered the kitchen, coffee cup in one hand, cereal spoon in the other, gathering cake ingredients.
That recipe has sat in my mom’s recipe box since her mom died. Rose has never baked this cake. It was only for special occasions, and there weren’t many after my grandfather died. My mom was eight. They were so poor Rose ironed clothes to earn money for herself, her sister, and her two brothers. When I asked for the recipe, she told me she’d never make one because it makes her too sad. But she would love for me to bake her one.
Special Occasion Chocolate Cake
Preheat to 350 degrees
Baking time: 22 minutes
Butter 2 8” round pans only on the bottom
Note: My grandmother would use whatever ingredients were at hand. She didn’t care if it was cake flour or all-purpose flour, imitation vanilla or organic vanilla, fancy cocoa or regular cocoa, and substituted on the fly when needed. She also loved coffee and would add it liberally.
Cake
1 ½ sticks of unsalted butter
1 cup light brown sugar
½ cup baker’s sugar
2 ½ cups cake flour
1 cup cocoa
1 ½ tsp baking soda
4 eggs at room temperature
1 tablespoon vanilla
1 ½ cups sour cream*
½ to 1 cup of cold coffee to splash in as the whim strikes you
Optional: 1/2 cup chopped raw walnuts or to taste**
Mix all the dry ingredients except the sugar and set aside.
Beat together the eggs, vanilla, coffee, and sour cream until blended well. Set aside.
Cream butter and sugar.
Add egg mix to creamed butter.
Slowly add dry ingredients. Beat for two minutes, scraping the sides frequently.
If you want walnuts, add them to the completed batter using a spatula.
Spoon batter into buttered pans about 1/2 full (you may have batter left over). Let batter rest for a few minutes. This is a good time to clean up.
Bake.
Frosting
1 stick of butter
6 heaping tablespoons cocoa
3 to 4 cups of powdered sugar
Pinch of salt
2 teaspoons vanilla
Cold coffee to taste
Optional: 1/8 cup chopped walnuts or to taste **
Mix cocoa, sugar, and salt and set aside.
Beat butter until fluffy. Add vanilla and a little coffee. Slowly add dry ingredients and coffee to taste. If you want walnuts, toast them and add at the end.
Frost cake only after completely cooled.
*You can buy sour cream or sour it. If buying, get the organic kind with nothing in it but sour cream. If you sour the cream, you can use the buttermilk or vinegar methods.
Souring cream with buttermilk: In a clean container, add in 1 cup of heavy cream. Add five teaspoons of fresh buttermilk and mix thoroughly. Add 1 more cup of heavy cream, mix, and let it sit at 70-80 degrees for twenty-four hours. For a smoother result, refrigerate after that another twenty-four hours, and use right away.
Souring cream or milk with vinegar: add 1 cup of cream or milk to 1 tablespoon white vinegar, stir gentle and let sit 10-15 minutes until it’s as thick as buttermilk or organic yogurt.
**My grandmother like nuts in the cake and frosting. I like to toast the walnuts, but Rose said I wasn’t allowed as that’s not how her mom did it. I’ve decided just not to tell her.
- ohio's blog
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Comments
Wow, super recipe!
Way to ribbon at the State Fair!
Congratulations!
Mmmmmm
Coffee and cocoa, sounds killingly good.
Congratulations, and thanks for more lovely writing.
Policy not party!
PS: what's baker's sugar?
Policy not party!
Baker's sugar is more finely ground granulated sugar.
Comes in a half-gallon milk container package. Sounds like a lot, but if you bake, you'll use it up quick.
Good for you and your grandma!
Congratulations! And thank you for sharing the recipe with us!
this cake recipe really caught my eye....
thanks. It sounds incredible!!! A few months ago while visiting my brother in South Carolina, his Spanish teacher (from Costa Rico) had made a cake for him that was incredible. It - the cake part was very granular and heavy, possibly with condensed milk and some other kind of milk. Basically, there were interesting milk tastes in it and the icing (notice Southerners say icing instead of frosting) was very smooth whipped cream (not frothy and thick) with strawberries in a star shape on the top. She told my brother it was a Costa Rican recipe and was a secret.
Anybody know about this cake? Am trying to get the recipe.
kc
Tres Leches
I'm no expert, but that would be my best guess. I've had it and it's been fabulous, but more often I've had it and it's been so sweet it makes my teeth hurt. Seems like you have to get the recipe just right.
The chocolate cake also sounds incredible -- congrats!
Grandmothers....
btw, your grandmother sounds awesome. Reminds me of mine, cooking with alittle bit of this and that-no measuring and usually no recipe. Terrific results though.
kc
Congrats!
I've got recipes from my great-grandmother that basically say "take flour, add enough water" etc. No need for measurements - that kind of cooking knowledge used to be handed down by having the younguns (the female ones, anyway) hanging around in the kitchen.
Lose the gender-determined roles, but we still need this mechanism. Yay hanging around in the kitchen!
---------------
We can't afford not to have single-payer!
Re: kc's comment
What you described sounds like the Tres leches Cake (3 milk cake).
Here's a recipe I've used and liked:
1 1/4 cup cake flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup oil
5 eggs, large
1 teaspoon plus 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup plus 1/2 cup milk
1 cup sweetened condensed milk
1 cup plus 3/4 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon rum (or slightly more-- to taste)
1 pinch salt
optional: fresh berries or cinnamon
Sift flour, baking powder and salt.
In bowl of mixer, combine the oil, sugar, and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract. Add the eggs one at a time until well combined. Stir in the 1/2 cup of milk.
Turn off mixer, then gently fold in the flour mixture a little at a time with a spatula.
Pour batter into a lightly greased cake pan or a glass casserole dish and bake at 325 degrees for 30-40 minutes or until it feels firm and a toothpick comes out clean.
Let the cake cool to room temperature. Turn it over onto a platter with raised edges. Pierce cake with a fork 20-30 times. Let it cool in the refrigerator for an additional 30 minutes.
Whisk together 1 cup milk, 1 cup sweetened condensed milk, 1 cup heavy cream and rum. Slowly pour over cooled cake. Refrigerate for 1 hour. Occasionally, spoon the milk runoff back onto the cake.
In a mixing bowl, add 3/4 cup heavy cream, 1 teaspoon vanilla and 1 Tablespoon sugar. Beat until peaks form. Spread a thin layer over the cake.
Top with a sprinkle of cinnamon or garnish with fresh berries.
*****
As for the Special Occasion Chocolate Cake, I'm warming the ingredients right now (room-temping), and I plan to serve it tonight.
BTW, I'm a trained pastry chef. Baking Sugar is also known as Bar Sugar (fine grains for dissolving quickly and thoroughly in mixed drinks). The food processor and metal blade --or even the blender-- can reduce the grain enough to approximate baking sugar for home use).
OMG! That's the best tasting batter in the world!
Layers are now in the oven, but the batter tastes so good it's almost a shame to bake it! Batter for dessert doesn't sound like a weird idea right now.
No wonder you won with this gem!
Fantastic!
I read recipes, don't make them... So it's really encouraging and wonderful that people are testing recipes.
Got more? And be sure to post on how it comes out!
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Then you have a whole new unexplored world awaiting
As much reward as you get from the garden in summer, you will get from cooking and winter is the best time to do it. No worry about the house getting to warm, the heat from the stove and the oven isn't at all wasted but simply reduces the amount of heat you need to generate in other ways, the aromas filling the house are an inspiring and uplifting counter to the gloom of short days and the chill of the outdoors, and the sense of accomplishment that comes from a well-prepared meal or dessert is every bit as good for the spirit as a well-tended garden.
Like the garden, cooking and baking seem complicated and mysterious but really, it is measures and tasting and temperature and time, nothing more complex than that - oh, well, and love; lots of love.
There's your self-improvement project for 2009, Lambert, knew you were needing one (heh, heh heh). Dems or Rs, either way, you will want some new ray of sunshine in your life and cooking can be it.
congrats
Loved the essay that went with the entry! especially moving is the different reactions the recipe conjurs in different family members.. beautiful!
dupager
dupager
Uh, realize you said organic sour cream, but...can fat free sour
creamish stuff be used??
Also, any idea how much that "little coffee" and does the amount change any baking time or texture?
I have a fat phobia--if I don't know about the fat, I'm OK, but I dread using fat.
And, yes, I have trouble losing weight...could be the no thyroid thing and low thyroid hormone previously. Doc says it's not--but he can't explain why I had energy and lost weight almost magically for 10 months after changing my synthetic thyroid hormone dose, but, after the next round of wee tiny amount of radioactive iodine (RAI), everything reversed: Extreme fatigue, instant, then continued weight gain.
New thyroidologist at the hospital says the wee tiny amount of RAI, which isn't supposed to be able to kill off thyroid cells, just may have done that to some small remnant thyroid tissue. Which may have been contributing some natural thyroid hormone to the mix, which may have resulted in the higher energy and increased metabolism and thus weight loss. But it's not supposed to happen....
Anyway, does reduced fat or fat free sour cream affect the taste/texture? (I haven't baked a cake in ages, btw, but this looks fantastic.)
Coffee to taste
can that be no coffee? Because it looks like it would taste awesome without the coffee.
Congrats on winning and thanks for sharing. Very generous of you.
Cake, Yay!
"Do what you feel in your heart to be right -- for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't. " - Eleanor Roosevelt
BDB, no coffee? Are you some kind of communist?
And all this time I thought you were an intelligent, sensible person.
You can use espresso (works great) for less of the acidic bitterness, but if you really hate coffee, don't put any in. And please sure to say hi to my grandmother for me when she starts haunting you.
No coffee. The mind wobbles.
(I'm joking ya. Do as you see fit.)
I Know It Makes Me Suspect, ohio
It's a taste I've never really developed. I like a cup of coffee now and then, but I don't really like it in desserts. Although if it makes you feel any better, while I may not be all that crazy about coffee, caffeine is my drug of choice.
"Do what you feel in your heart to be right -- for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't. " - Eleanor Roosevelt
Well, okay on the caffeine, but I'm keeping my eye on you
You'll need a little more liquid, I think, for the batter recipe.
How about a green tea? Some of the best Belgian chocolates I've ever had had tea in them. Between the vanilla and sour cream, you have the sweet and sour flavors, the chocolate gives you, well, the joy that is chocolate. But I think you're going to want a bottom flavor---a touch of bitter to set off everything else.
But I could be wrong. Interesting idea, wonder if it would work.
The frosting may be too sweet without coffee or espresso. Maybe not. A really dark cocoa frosting may do the trick.
Or Perhaps Just Very Little Coffee?
enough to get the bitter without a strong coffee taste. I don't know, but I do intend to play around with it and find out. I don't bake a lot, but chocolate cake is one of my favorite foods and this recipe sounds too good not to try.
"Do what you feel in your heart to be right -- for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't. " - Eleanor Roosevelt
Oh, yeah, put in as much or as little as you want
Just be sure the batter is not too thick.
Let me know what happens. I may try that green tea instead of coffee thing.
Just please don't tell my mom. She rarely gets mad at me but this would do it and while she's only a tiny thing, I'm ascared of her wrath. When angry, she channels her grandmother, the formidable Hannah Rose Daly, so much the brogue starts to show.
Thanks you all for reading and enjoying the recipe
Rose and Ken are visiting tomorrow, so I have the ribbons to show. Then I'll bake Rose the cake on Sunday---despite the completely busted oven. (The Great Mystery of the Test Cake Flambe was solved when the thermostat wire fell off and rattled around on the floor. Huh. Imagine that.) I have a pal who lets me run to her house to use her oven, as long as I leave a little bowl of frosting.
Frosting is an international currency.
jaw, I've never tried fat-free. Fat = flavor. One reason for adding the raw walnuts is so they release their oils, making the crumb a little more fudgy. The cake is pretty rich, though, so even if you go all-fat, you're not going to be scarfing down tons at one go. It's a pretty satisfying dessert, especially with cold milk, so maybe a bit of indulgence?
As far as how much coffee, well, during my tests, adding a bit more or less didn't seem to change the baking time. My grandmother would keep a pot of coffee in the kitchen at all times---hot in winter, cold in summer. She really would just look in her cup, look at the batter, and pour some in.
Delilah Boyd, that batter...it's pretty hard not to just reach for a spoon and skip the baking all together.
My grandmother was a tough old lady. She was not warm and fuzzy---I think she worried too much for that. Rosemary, OTOH, is warm and fuzzy, and she has a great sense of humor. She's not much for baking, except Christmas cookies. I don't know what's up with that. She used to bake hundreds of batches and store them in shoeboxes lined with wax paper. It was kind of insane, though they'd all get eaten up, that's for sure.
Thanks again for reading.
The coffee gives something special to the taste!
If you are not a coffee fan, you might try this:
Take 1 TBsp instant espresso granules and
1 Tbsp plain cocoa powder and
Dissolve both in 1/3 cup boiling water.
If you use that you get the mocha-flavor effect, without the 'backbite' from the coffee.
but my bet is you won't recognize coffee flavor in the batter, because unless she used a LOT (like a pint or more), it'll just give the chocolate that deeper dimension.
We can admit that we’re killers … but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0
1 John 4:18
Excellent, thanks
I'll try it first with a little coffee and then if that's too much, I'll go this route. Assuming of course that RL lets me.
"Do what you feel in your heart to be right -- for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't. " - Eleanor Roosevelt
This looks fabulous!
I love mocha-flavored anything.
Thanks for posting the recipe, and congratulations!
Well, it's a hit at my house!
My husband is a tea drinker, and he didn't know there was coffee in the cake until I told him. Coffee is to chocolate as salt is to sugar: it merely accentuates the sweetness and gives the finished product depth of flavor (richness). I used 1/2 cup of brewed coffee in the batter and 1/2 cup in the icing.
The icing is too sweet for my taste, though. The next time I make it, I'll won't pipe it. I'll just spread it on with a spatula.
Thanks again for the recipe!