Chocolate cake is so good on any day, if you love chocolate as we do in this house. When I have free time, which is at a bare minimum these days I love to bake a cake my grand mom had shown me on a carefree summer day when I was a mere child of 12. What is better then baking it one may ask? That answer is simple it is eating it.
I loved going over to stay with grandma in the summer time, even if it meant I had to leave my house and friends 20 miles behind. She taught me many things about baking and I enjoyed almost ever minute of it.
The recipe called for half a cup of Hellmann’s mayonnaise, which made it moist, and a half a cup of cold day old Folgers coffee to make it rich. Grandma said only Hellmann’s would do because they were a company that took pride in the way they created their products. She would also chop two Hershey milk chocolate bars and add it to her cake mixture.
For Grandma only the best would do when she created her delicious recipes from scratch. Granted prepared mayonnaise, coffee and chocolate bars were not from scratch but they were quality products she believed in and trusted. Brand names were very important to my grandma and a missing ingredient would send her scrambling for another recipe.
As grandma added each product to the cake batter, she would explain the purpose of each ingredient. It was a wonderful way to learn how to cook from scratch. Perhaps the cakes I learned to create were not for the faint of heart calorie wise, but they tasted so great that it did not matter. I say the cakes I learned to create with good reason, with her cakes it was a creative endeavor and not a baking time.
Grandma would enter her chocolate cake into the country fair and it always got a first place ribbon, and people would often joke that once Ruth entered the competition it should be considered closed, as no one else would win. It did not matter, if it was her favorite chocolate cake, the heavenly cake, or the fresh raspberry surprise people knew it would take a blue ribbon home.
When grandma worked at the tiny troy diner after her children had left the nest, all the folks in town got to try her cakes. She was their baker for many years and that was her sole purpose. She would not bake at the diner; instead, she would cook at home and then bring in finished products. This assured her no one would barrow her recipes and provided her with job security.
Now that my Grandma has passed up to her great reward above, I would like to think she is given me her permission to share her secret chocolate cake with the world.
1 and a quarter cups of all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons unsweetened bakers cocoa
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup (200 g) sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla essence
½ cup day old strong Folgers coffee
½ cup Hellmann’s mayonnaise
2 Hershey’s milk chocolate bars (chop 1 for the cake batter and shave the other for the top of the finished cake)
2 eggs
Mix all ingredients in a stainless steel bowl until well mixed. Pour in a greased pan and bake for 30 minutes in a preheated oven at 350 degrees. Set the finished cake upon a tea towel until it is completely cooled. Tip the entire cake out of the pan unto a plate carefully. This way the bottom of the cake is skyward and then you will use a sifter to sprinkle powdered sugar over the entire cake. Well that is what my Grandma used to do, however I love to put cool whip and shave a milk chocolate candy bar on top.
