Week 16: Old-fashioned fudge cake

My friend Jenny Vellon made this one day for our group of friends back in grad school, and we begged her to make it for every gathering after that.  Jenny is a generous and thoughtful gal, so she obliged.  She also told us it was very easy to make, but none of us believed her.

Jenny gave me the recipe for Christmas one year, and I quickly added it to my book of hand-written recipes.  And yet, I continued to worry that it'd come out terribly wrong if I attempted to make it.  It wasn't until a few months into my baking obsession that I pulled out the recipe and decided to try it out.  And boy am I glad I did - it tasted exactly as I remembered it, and it brought back great memories of fun times shared with grad school friends.

If you've always been intimidated by baking a cake from scratch, I'd say this cake is reason enough to break down and give it a go.  It's deliciously moist and, yes, surprisingly easy to make.  And how could you not want to eat this??

Honestly, look at all that chocolatey goodness!

Lessons learned and recipe thoughts:

1. A great beginner's cake - as long as you can measure ingredients and mix them with a whisk or spoon...you can handle this one.

2. After my many disastrous attempts and making chocolate peanut butter no-bake cookies & discovering that I had never allowed the mixture to come to a complete boil (see Week 7 post), I was a bit reluctant to trust that my frosting was at a boil.  Sadly, I pushed it too far & it broke.  How, you  might wonder, do you break frosting?  If you cook this frosting too long, the butter will start to separate out from the milk and cocoa & you'll have the milk and cocoa together & melted butter swimming around them.  Here's a sign that it's about to happen - you'll see dark specks & then dark streaks in the frosting as you're stirring.  And if you ignore those signs, well it'll separate.  Lucky for me, I happen to have far more baking ingredients on hand than anyone should, so I just dumped the mess in the trash can & started over.  Second attempt came out perfectly.

Many thanks to Jenny for giving me the a-ok to share this recipe with my pals.

Jenny's Old-Fashioned Fudge Cake

2 C flour
1 1/2 c sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 C unsweetened cocoa powder
1 C oil
1 C buttermilk
3 eggs, beaten
3 tsp vanilla
3/4 C hot water

Frosting:
4 tbls unsweetened cocoa powder
6 tbls milk
1 stick butter
3/4 lb powdered sugar
1 tbls vanilla
 
Preheat oven to 350. Grease 9x13 pan.

1. Sift together flour, sugar, soda, salt & cocoa. Add oil, buttermilk, eggs, vanilla, and hot water. Mix well. (Seriously, that's all there is to it.)

2. Pour into 9x13 pan and bake for 30 minutes.

3. Start making your frosting about 10-15 minutes before cake is done baking.  For frosting, make a paste of cocoa and milk in a saucepan. Add butter and bring to a boil, stirring constantly.  Remove from heat and add powdered sugar and vanilla,  Beat well.  Pour over still hot cake in baking pan.

4. Serve warm; especially wonderful with vanilla ice cream or fresh whipped cream.