Very Merry Unbirthday to Me and You!

Yellow Cake with A Lot of Work Chocolate Frosting

For the past month or so I have been communicating back and forth with my Great Aunt Maureen, the one relative who, god bless her soul, has kept Grams' recipes and accompanied special stories all kept away in a safe place.

My Dad for years would talk about this yellow cake. This cake was for him major food nostalgia- just how Grams' sugar cookies are to me. Yes, I said a standard yellow cake. This cake fed a many birthday tummy.

I emailed Maureen for the recipe so I could replicate the efforts and see just how whimsical this cake was. This is what she emailed back.

Cream: shortening/butter and sugar
Beat in: eggs
Sift together: sifted cake flour, baking powder and salt
Stir into creamed mixture alternately with: milk and vanilla

Pretty basic right? and you are probably asking what I did...how much, how long and how hot? She emailed me back saying pretty much that before World War II most bakers would fold the egg whites in last which made for a lighter, higher cake. The cook time varied. Most old recipe books didn't list the time or temperature, they new their oven intimately. Gotta love those little nuggets of timeless information!

The cake was delicious! Light, fluffy and moist. Next time, with the additional information given I will use a 8x8 cake pan or use my mini cake pans to make a yellow layer cake with and bake it at 350 for 25-30 minutes.

To accompany this cake recipe was A Lot of Work Chocolate Frosting that is (suppose to be) just like chocolate fudge. Apparently I didn't work at it enough! I am very impatient when it comes to waiting to eat dessert and so are my friends. The chocolate needs to be made into a ganache and cooled so it's spreadable. I however, was fine with chocolate sauce and it seeped into the top layer of the cake and it was like chocolate heaven! Sorry the pic isn't that great.

Thank you Maureen!