National Chocolate Cake Day

My friend and fellow author, Roseanne Dowell, blogged today about National Chocolate Cake Day. This is a holiday that I really cannot quite celebrate. Even though there are gluten free flours out there and even Betty Crocker has a gluten free cake mix, I have not yet found an acceptable sugar substitute. I can, however, bake a chocolate cake for someone else, which my daughter Elizabeth and I did last night. (To quote Maxwell Smart, we “missed it by that much!”) We’re frosting it tonight since the white sauce has to cool and we didn’t make that early enough. My sister Carol will be seventy-five a week from today. We plan to freeze the cake and take it to her next Wednesday when we take her out to dinner to celebrate her birthday. I’ll add the photo when we frost the cake tonight.

(Note: Sorry, I don't have Centigrade or metric measurements.)

Never-Fail Devil’s Food Cake

½ lb. Butter

1 cup Sugar

2 Eggs

3 Tbsp. Cocoa

1 tsp. Vanilla

2 Cups Flour (sifted twice)

¾ Cup Sour Milk (you can sour milk by adding a bit of vinegar)

2 tsp. Baking Soda

1 Cup Boiling Water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream butter and sugar. Add cocoa, eggs and vanilla, beating well. Alternate adding milk and flour. Mix baking soda in water and add. Mix well. Bake 30-35 minutes in greased and floured pan/s (8" round or 13"X9" rectangular). Test center before removing from oven.

White Sauce Frosting

White Sauce

2 Tablespoons Flour

½ Cup Milk

Make white sauce ahead of time. Mix flour and milk. Boil until stiff. Let cool.

Frosting Base

¼ lb. Butter

1 Cup Sugar

1 tsp. Vanilla

Cream butter and sugar, add vanilla and cooled white sauce. Beat until fluffy.