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.