Monday, April 30, 2012

Chocolate Buttermilk Cake

My boys wanted a chocolate cake for dessert.  That's not a surprise, now, is it?  Boys want chocolate.  Boys want cake.  It's the natural order of the world, I think.

Anyway, I found a recipe in my older Fannie Farmer cookbook, the 1950s version, and adapted it a little bit to suit my needs and available ingredients.  The cake was a bit more crumbly than most, but Ryan pronounced it just as good as any cake, and Mark said it was much better.  No consensus there, eh?

CHOCOLATE BUTTERMILK CAKE

1-2/3 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
4 tbsp buttermilk powder*
1-1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup oil
1 cup water*

Sift together the dry ingredients.  Add the vanilla, oil and water, beat for 2 minutes, turn into a greased 9x12 pan, and bake for 25 to 30 minutes.  Cool and frost.

*The buttermilk powder can be eliminated and the water replaced with buttermilk if you have some around.  Milk can be soured by pouring 2 tbsp of either lemon juice or white vinegar into a measuring cup and adding milk to total one cup, then stirring and letting it sit for 5 minutes to substitute for these ingredients, too.


My frosting is colored yellow in this picture, because Ryan was stomping about the kitchen waving the food coloring box at me, chanting, "Make the cake interesting!"  Kids.  Sheesh.

11 comments:

SissySees said...

Yellow cake with chocolate icing. Why not chocolate cake with yellow icing? That's interesting. ;)

Linda said...

Yum......I always have buttermilk on hand...I love it...drink it or bake with it.

Two French Bulldogs said...

We are very hungry. Where is the milk?
Benny & Lily

Anonymous said...

Your boys are lucky boys.

Janet Rudolph said...

Buttermilk Chocolate cake.. always good. .. easy and fun. I know those boys enjoyed it :-)

Pam said...

I wish you would come to my house and make me a dessert every night. Oh, and fresh dinner rolls too please.

The cake looks delicious!

gMarie said...

hmmm - I'm surprised you didn't come up with something a bit more colorful for the icing - like cake in Mark's face? Your kids are something, aren't they? g

Blond Duck said...

LOL!

monica said...

I completely understand your sheeshing´; not only are you demanded a cake, but an interesting one as well!

Looks absolutely delicious!!

STELLA and RORY from Down Under said...

Hi Marjie, great sounding cake. Bet it didn't last long with your boys around. No worries, and love, Carol

Mary said...

Silly boys. Make the cake interesting totally cracked me up, I like that. I love that you make dessert every night.

I would suggest that being your neighbor might have it's perks, but I'm guessing that there is almost never anything leftover!