Chocolate Cake Memories…

I came across the old cake recipe while searching for something else. I just had to take a moment and look at it. It was carefully typed out by my mother in order to keep it readable, since the original recipe had been used so many times by my grandmother that you could scarcely read it. Even this one had smudges of cake batter and frosting fingerprints. I didn’t make the cake but I thought I would share the recipe with you. As you read through it, you will notice a few unusual techniques that were used many years ago. I estimate this recipe to be at least 100 years old. Give it a try… and let me know how it turns out!


Old Time Fudge Cake
By The Gourmet Farm Girl

2/3 cup soft butter
1 ¾ cup sugar
2 eggs
1 t vanilla
2 squares unsweetened chocolate (melted)
2 ½ cups sifted cake flour
1 ¼ t soda
½ t salt

1 ¼ cups ice water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Cream together butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla till fluffy; beat for 5 minutes at high speed scraping bowl occasionally

Sift together flour, soda and salt: add to the creamed mixture alternately with ice water; make sure to beat well after each addition

Bake in 2 greased and floured 9 inch round cake pans at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes or till a tooth pick come out clean. Cool cakes on a wire rack

Chocolate Fortune Frosting

2 squares unsweetened chocolate

2 cups sifted confectioner’s sugar
3 T (hot) water
1 egg
1/3 cup soft butter
1 t vanilla
1 1/2 cups walnut halves (optional) 
Melt chocolate in a medium size mixing bowl over hot water or in the microwave a few seconds at a time till just melted.
(Grandma didn’t have a microwave)
Mix in sugar and water; beat in the egg then the butter and vanilla
Frosting will be thin at this point so place bowl on top of a bowl of ice water; continue beating until spreading consistency. Frost cake and trim sides with walnut halves
ENJOY!