The birthday boy

 

Padraic turned 7 on Monday. I nearly cannot believe that it has been that many years since his birth. I remember being pregnant with him. He did not give me much trouble and he was such a wonderful baby. Now, these days he is a goofy boy, every day he seems to get sillier. He is such a blessing and I am proud to call him my firstborn son.

To celebrate, I made Padraic a cake from scratch. If you know me well you know that I make everything from scratch, however, I usually buy boxed mixes and frosting from the store to make birthday cakes. I know, I know *gasp* WHY? I don't know why, I suppose it is because I do not keep cake flour in my pantry and cakes usually call for cake flour. Reading a new baking book that the Painter bought me for Christmas, I was inspired by the author; she never uses cake flour and insists that her cakes come out just fine. 

So, flipping through my Joy of Cooking cookbook (if you don't have it, you need it!) I picked a recipe that I had all the ingreadents for. It turned out lovely. As it was described in the book, this cake is a dense cake and long keeping. It has a wonderful chocolate taste, slightly tangy because of the buttermilk. It would be great with mini chocolate chips to make it a triple chocolate cake.

 

Devil's Food Cake

1 cup suagar

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa

1/2 cup buttermilk

Combine and beat these together until well blended. Set aside.

1/2 cup unsalted butter

Beat until soft.

1 cup sugar

Add gradually to butter and cream until light.

2 eggs

 One at a time, beat eggs into creamed butter/sugar. Add chocolate mixture and beat.

2 cups flour, sifted before measuring

1 tsp baking powder (or soda)

1/2 tsp salt

Sift these three together then add in 3 parts to butter/chocolate mixture, alternately with:

1/2 buttermilk

1 tsp vanilla

Beat batter after each addition just until smooth. Grease a Bundt or tube pan and sprinkle sugar over the bottom. Bake in a 350° oven for 1 hour. Cool cake in pan on a wire rack for 15 minutes. Turn cake out onto the rake.

Chocolate Glaze:

1/2 cup chocolate chips (I used dark chocolate)

2 Tbsp butter

3 Tbsp sugar dissolved into 3 tsp hot water

 Heat all 3 over low heat, stirring constantly, until chips are melted. Cool slightly. Put waxed paper under rack with the cake.  Poor warm chocolate over top of cake. Wait 20 minutes before moving cake to a cake stand or plate.

Enjoy!