This is my favorite chocolate cake recipe. I have tried others, including a chocolate Guiness cake, but I always come back to this one. I think it's because it's my mom's recipe and I have been eating it for a half a century. I only have to pick up buttermilk when I want to make it, as I have all the other ingredients on hand, and you probably do too.

Never-fail Chocolate Cake with Fudge Frosting

2 cups sugar (I usually cut it down to 1 1/2 cups)
2 eggs
1/4 cup shortening (I use softened butter)
1 TBS vinegar
2 tsp baking soda
1 cup buttermilk (you can use milk soured with a little lemon juice)
2 1/2 cups flour (I use white whole wheat or half and half)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 cup boiling water (I use hot coffee)
1 tsp vanilla

Combine sugar, eggs, and butter/shortening. Mix well. In separate bowl, combine vinegar, soda, buttermilk, and vanilla, add to creamed mixture. Sift together flour, salt, and cocoa, blend into egg mixture. Add boiling water or coffee. Up to this point, you can use a mixer, but when you add the hot liquid, stir or fold till combined. Do not overbeat. Pour batter into 9 by 13 inch pan which you have greased. Bake for 35 minutes at 375 (25-30 in my oven) or until cake tests done.

Frosting
6 TBS milk
6 TBS butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
3/4 cup chocolate chips
1 tsp vanilla

Bring to a rolling boil. Boil 1/2 minute. Remove from heat and add chocolate chips and vanilla. Take frosting to an interested party, put a folded towel on their lap and tell them to stir it till it starts to thicken. Spread on cooled cake.

I cut this up into LARGE pieces and wrap in plastic wrap and freeze so my sweetie can have cake for lunch.



The interested party gets to clean out the frosting pan!

"Take frosting to an interested party, put a folded towel on their lap and tell them to stir it till it starts to thicken."

hahahahaha!

i think i gained a pound just reading your recipe.

SunnyDay, First, your profile quote is beyond excellent! Second, the recipe looks incredible, and I want to try it, but I am really bad at baking. Finally, the pic is priceless! Thanks for the post.

i want to see a photo of chuck with a chocolate encrusted beard.

And the interested party looks to be on point.

@ Jan, a piece of that cake is worth all the calories! And Jan, I don't let him have food in his beard too long...one of my many jobs.

@ Frenchy, that quote is from my dad. It's from an essay he wrote that was published in book, Voices for the Land. A great man, a great father and a good writer. He was an avid outdoorsman. A self taught wild foods expert. We grew up with wild foods on our table regularly. He and mom would go on a wild foods diet each year where they would eat nothing but wild foods that he had gathered. He also taught classes in mushrooming in my hometown and would take people into the BWCA on classes to live off the land. He would bring wild rice and maple syrup (that he had tapped, and boiled) and I think some sort of fat (bear or beaver tail). Thanks for reading!

@ water, Whenever I'm in the kitchen so is she!

quote SunnyDay: "I don't let him have food in his beard too long...one of my many jobs."

thats funny liz. :)