Buttermilk Chocolate Cake Recipe

Since I could hardly reach the kitchen counter, I always liked to cook. My Mother taught me how to make chocolate chip cookies at Christmastime. When I was only seven years old, I could whip up a batch of peanut butter cookies as good as Mom's. My Mother wasn't necessarily a good cook (sorry Mom) but she could make wonderful old fashion drop biscuits. I've never been able to match her skills biscuit making but I have surpassed her in most other areas of cooking food. Not that I'm a gourmet cook, I'm far from that. But I do have my favorite dishes that I prefer to anyone else's.

I remember so well how disappointed I was when I entered high school in 1954 and I wasn't allowed to take the Home Economics class. Remember this was back in the Eisenhower Fifties when boys were boys and girls were girls and never the twain should meet. What a shame. My first date, Bonnie, wanted to take shop and she wasn't allowed either because shop was for boys only just as "Home Ec" for the girls only. Thank goodness that way of thinking has changed (I assume it has anyway, I don't know for sure.)

I didn't start experimenting with cooking again until I moved in with my life partner Bill back in March of 1965. Since then I've tried all kinds of recipes. Some successful and some not so successful. Again, I'm not a gourmet cook but I do like to cook good food that taste good. My test of a good recipe is one that keeps you coming back for more.

In January of 2006 I put my house in Pennsylvania up for sale. I contracted to have a new house built in Delaware, confident that I would sell my Pennsylvania house in no time. How wrong I was. This was right at the beginning of the housing bust. For seven long months I carried two mortgages at a cost of $3,998 a month. I almost lost my new house to foreclosure. Through a bit of luck and taking on a new 30 year mortgage (which will be paid off when I'm 95 years old!), I sold my house in Pennsylvania and now live in my wonderful new home in Sussex County, Delaware near the Delaware Bay and Atlantic Ocean (2 miles east of where I live the waves roll in daily.) From January 2006 until just last week I had lost just about all interest in cooking. That is how traumatic the house selling and relocation to Delaware was to me. This experience for me was the worst thing next to a terminal illness . It was so traumatic for me that I couldn't even write about it in my blog. I may never write about it except the little snippets of information that I just wrote about in this paragraph.

But last week I felt like life was returning to normal for me. I have a renewed interest in cooking again. I've cooked cakes over the past two years but they were the prepackaged box cakes like Duncan Hines. While good, they aren't the same as homemade. Last week I wanted a good chocolate cake. A homemade, from scratch chocolate cake. A cake made with cake flour, not all purpose flour. A cake in which the ingredients are at room temperature, not cold straight out of the refrigerator. I saw this recipe for Buttermilk Chocolate Cake on the side of the Swans Down Cake Flour box. It looked like a major effort. Not quite as convenient as a box cake in which you just add oil, water and eggs. This one would require many bowls, scrappers, measuring cups, and pans. I took one the challenge. It was well worth it. The finished chocolate cake was the best I have ever had in my life and I made it. I froze some, gave some to my good neighbor and promptly made two more (so I would have enough before the weather got too hot to use the oven.) Below is my Buttermilk Chocolate Cake Recipe. It is not my original recipe but rather from the box of Swans Down Cake Flour. You make this cake and you may not go back to any other chocolate cake recipe. It certainly far surpasses any box cake.

Deluxe Devil's Food Cake

Preparation time: 45 minutes
Bake time: 30 minutes

Crisco No-Stick Cooking Spray with Flour
2 cups sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1 teaspoon clear vanilla
3/4 teaspoon almond extract
2 large eggs
2 1/2 cups Softasilk Cake Flour
1 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder (alkalized) or unsweetened coca powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 1/4 cup buttermilk

Butter cream Frosting

1 1/4 cup (2 1/12 sticks), butter, room temperature
2 teaspoons clear vanilla
1 teaspoon almond extract 8-9 tablespoons milk
7 1/2 cups (2 pounds) powdered sugar

HEAT: oven to 350F. Spray three 9-inch round cake pans generously with no-stick cooking spray with flour.

BEAT: sugar, 1 cup butter, 1 teaspoon clear vanilla and 3/4 teaspoon almond extract in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Mix cake flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt; beat into creamed mixture alternately with buttermilk on medium speed. Beat 1 minute longer. Pour into prepared pans.

BAKE: 26 to 30 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 15 minutes; remove from pans to wire rack. Cool completely.

BEAT: 1 1/4 cups butter, 2 teaspoons clear vanilla and 1 teaspoon almond extracts in a medium bowl at medium speed until creamy. Gradually add milk and powdered sugar, scraping bowl as needed. Bet on high speed adding additional milk by the tablespoon until desired spreading consistency is achieved. Brush any loose crumbs from cooled layers. Place first layer, rounded side down, on plate. Spread with Butter cream Frosting to within 1/4 inch of edge. Level off top of second layer. Top with second layer, topside down. Sp;read with frosting. Top with third layer, top side up. Coat side of cake with thin layer of frosting to seal in crumbs. Frost side and top of cake. If desired, draw cake comb through frosting to make decorative designs and top with shaved chocolate curls. Refrigerate cake to set the frosting; allow cake to stand at room temperature 10 minutes before serving.
Makes 16 servings.

The buttermilk gives the cake a nice old fashion chocolate flavor. Enjoy!

Since then I had a hankering for that wonderful carrot cake I had at Cracker Barrel last year. I looked up the recipe on the Internet, made it and here is what is left after one day. Bill is crazy over carrot cake. My neighbor Bob Murphy loves it. My good friend Bob McCamley says it is his favorite cake. I love it. I'm back cooking again and I love it. Future postings will feature my one and only chicken salad recipe. One think I want to make clear to anyone who is thinking that I'm a gourmet cook. I am not. I don't cook seafood, lamb, or veal. I just like to cook food that taste good. I cook mostly chicken and some beef. I love to cook vegetables and I make the best mashed (we called them "squashed") potatoes around. Cooking is another relaxing past time I have in addition to my genealogy research, taking digital pictures, and posting to my blog and personal journal. This is what I do in my retirement and I love it.

House Guests

This weekend Bill and I are welcoming our first house guests. No, the house guests will not be the Determined Sparrow and his mate. Our house guests will be Jack and Judy, dear friends for a long time. Judy and I graduated from Downingtown High School in 1959. We renewed our friendship at a class reunion 10 years ago. When I was building my house in Delaware in 2006, Jack and Judy graciously offered me the use of their lovely house that is located right on the Rehoboth Bay in Lewes, Delaware. Jack and Judy told me that when they were building their house some years previously, friends of theirs had offered them the use of their house during its building process. They said how useful it was to be able to monitor the building of their house without the added expense of renting a hotel room each time they visited. They were spending the winter at their Florida condo and they told me I could use their house anytime time I wanted. What wonderful friends. I was so appreciative because it did help me a great deal during the building process of my house that I offered them the use of my house anytime they needed a place to stay. That time has come. Their son is getting married this weekend. Jack and Judy have seven children and numerous grandchildren, so it didn’t take long to fill up their house, as big as it is. I am so glad that we can offer our hospitality to such a wonderful couple and dear friends. When I built this house I specifically wanted a guest quarters. That’s why I took the option for a bonus room upstairs to this ranch house. My previous house in Pennsylvania was large but did not offer guest quarters. It was a Dutch Colonial house with four bedrooms. However, there were only two and a half bathrooms. There was one bathroom off the master bedroom (my room), another bathroom in the hallway for the other three second floor bedrooms. Downstairs there was another half bath. My partner occupied one of the bedrooms at the end of the hallway and used the second bathroom as his personal bathroom. Thus, if we had company, they either had to use my bathroom or my partner’s bathroom. We did not have good accommodations for company. That configuration was one that I definitely wanted to change when I built our new house in Delaware. Now we have a bonus room that has its own bedroom, bathroom and living room. This bonus room on the second floor affords privacy from the rest of the house for both guests and hosts. This works. Tonight Jack and Judy are going to join me and several of my neighbors for dinner at the Tokoyo Steak House in Lewes. What a great way to introduce my neighbors to my house guests! Tomorrow Jack and Judy “move in.” In the meantime, I’m still keeping a wary eye out for my uninvited guest, the Determined Sparrow.