Most of my friends know that I always do a chocolate cake for Joseph's birthday. For years I had been cheating and using a Duncan Hines mix!!!!! Shocker, I know. It all started when I asked a friend and chef for a good chocolate cake recipe when Joseph was around 4, as I was finding that my English recipes didn't seem to work so well here, and truthfully, I hadn't baked too many chocolate cakes. The friend knew it was for a 4 year old's birthday party and said I was crazy to bother to bake one from scratch, and so the cake from a mix thing started. I did always make my own Butter icing/frosting, honest! A year ago I made a wonderful cake, recipe from Rosalind, who had brought it to my birthday party earlier in the year. (I was sure I had posted it but it seems not!) This cake was a labour of love for sure, but well worth it in my opinion, here is a pic, looks pretty similar, suppose it is my frosting style but it was much bigger and it was really delicious!
So, as the birthday drew nigh I asked Joseph if he would like me to repeat the cake this year and he said: 'No, let's go back to the one you used to make', so disappointing, I LOVED last year's cake. However, I really wanted to improve on the packet mix cake and looked for a recipe for traditional chocolate cake. Turned to
Cooks Illustrated, of course and there found an 'Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake' recipe that looked about right to me. As I have said before, I cannot post a link, you need to subscribe to CI, most annoying. I even followed the icing recipe, no brainer, it had lots of chocolate and butter so of course was yummy. BINGO! Joseph loved it, no fretting next year, I will know exactly what to do!
