Cake - October 12, 2007

Hannah asked me to make a home made cake for her birthday. Since I've never made a cake before, I needed to do a practice one. Here it is :) It's completely from scratch! I don't think I've ever even made a cake from a box... I've certainly never made or frosted a layer cake! However, I watched my mom and sister do it a million times when I was a kid. It was easy, a piece of cake, I suppose, lol!

Grandma Duty's Chocolate Cake (written by my Mom)
2 cups sifted flour
1/2 c shortening or margerine or butter
3 T. Cocoa (heaping)
2 eggs
1 t. baking soda
1/2 cup sour cream or buttermilk
2 cups sugar
1 cup boiling water
cream shortening and sugar together; add eggs one at a time (Mom used to separate the egg yokes from the whites, beat the whites until stiff and fold into the batter at the very end. This makes a lighter cake, but I hardly ever do it.) Sift together dry ingredients (there again with the newer flours, you don't really have to sift unless you just want to.) Alternate the dry ingredients with the sour cream or buttermilk mixing well after each addition. Then add the boiling water and beat well. (if you had beaten the egg whites, this is when you would be folding them in) Pour into 2 wax paper lined round cake pans. Bake at 350 for 30 - 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the layer comes out clean. Cool on racks, then frost with your favorite frosting. (Mom, of course, used chocolate fudge, which you made much like fudge, cooking till the soft ball stage and then frosting the cake as quickly as you could before the fudge set up. It was really great.) Hope you and Hannah have fun making this cake. Hannah would be the fourth generation to bake it."

Fluffy White Frosting (Mom calls is 7 minute frosting)
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup water
¼ tsp cream of tartar
2 egg whites
1 tsp vanilla
mix sugar, water, and cream of tartar together in a small sauce pan. Bring to a boil. Begin beating egg whites and vanilla together in a standing mixer. When the syrup mixture is bubbly add slowly to the egg whites. Beat for 7 minutes or until stiff peaks form.