What to do when it’s Mom’s birthday and there’s no cake to celebrate? Leave it up to little Johnnie-boy! I made this when I was just ten years old and it has stuck around ever since. It’s the best!
It was late morning on Sept 27 and it was my mom’s birthday. It sure appeared that none of the rest of my family had done anything to prepare for or celebrate it and that distressed me. I thought to myself, “Self, that ain’t gonna work! At least you can bake her a cake with one of those boxed mixes.” So, I went to the kitchen, rummaged through the cupboards where Mom usually stored such things, but found none. No problem, there had to be one in the food storage room that was down in our basement. I hustled down there only to find the same thing; nothing. Well, let’s see. That does cause a predicament because I’m 10 years old, and being only 10, I can’t drive myself to the grocery store, I have no job and, as a result, no money.
“Gee!” I wondered. “How hard can it be to just bake one from scratch using a recipe from one of Mom’s cook books?” I picked a book at random, Betty Crocker’s Cookbook, that appeared as if it would hold a quality cake recipe and leafed through its pages until I found their “Best Chocolate Cake” recipe. It just looked and felt right so I figured, “What the heck? Let’s get baking!” There was a handwritten note by it that read, “double for 2 layers”. That must have been Mom’s note so I followed it since I wanted her to have a festive double-decker cake. It was, after all, her birthday, and a single layer cake just wouldn’t be sufficient for an occasion such as this! So, I jumped in and started baking.
The cake baked up nicely and I used the “Chocolate Butter Frosting” from the same Betty Crocker book to frost it. I was proud how it turned out and looked. At dinner, I surprised her with it. She was tickled, but her expression was more like, “Oh, isn’t it sweet that Little Johnnie put in all this effort? Bless his heart! That’s really prec… ” (takes her first bite) “Wait a minute! Wow, John, this is really good!”
That was all the encouragement I needed. From then on, I realized I didn’t need mixes or prepackaged ingredients to make anything. If I wanted chocolate pudding, but we didn’t have a box of the instant mix, no problem. Just break out the recipe book and cook it up. If I wanted chocolate chip cookies, but we had not bought any; no problem. Bake a batch myself. If I wanted angel hair pasta, but we were clean out; no problem. If I was dying for some crème brûlée… well, you get the picture. I found most recipes were fairly easy to follow. I could easily make whatever I wanted from scratch whenever I wanted to and, I mostly have ever since.
Cake INGREDIENTS:
(From Betty Crocker’s Cookbook. Double cake and frosting recipes for two layers)
- 1 C all-purpose or cake flour
- 1 C sugar
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 C plus 2 Tbsp water
- 1/4 C plus 2 Tbsp buttermilk
- 1/4 C shortening
- 1 egg
- 1/2 tsp vanilla
- 2 oz melted unsweetened chocolate (cool)
DIRECTIONS:
- Heat oven to 350°
- Grease and flour 9 inch round pan
- Beat all ingredients in large mixer bowl on low speed, scraping bowl constantly, 30 seconds
- Beat on high speed, scraping bowl occasionally, 3 minutes
- Pour into pan and bake for 30-35 minutes or until tooth pick inserted in middle comes out clean
FROSTING INGREDIENTS:
- 1/3 C butter, softened
- 2 oz unsweetened melted chocolate (cool)
- 2 C powdered sugar
- 1 1/2 tsp vanilla
- About 2 Tbsp milk
DIRECTIONS:
- Mix butter and chocolate
- Stir in powdered sugar
- Beat in vanilla and milk until frosting is of spreading consistency