Another October birthday

We have two birthday girls in our family with October birthdays. Yesterday you saw my granddaughter's cake and today we celebrated my Mother's eighty second birthday.

I tried something new, a chocolate, chocolate cake. I must admit it was yummy.

I got the recipe from my friend Angela who recently made cupcakes from this recipes for a wedding and posted the recipe on her blog. My husband and I tasted one of her cupcake creations and I knew I could make good use of her recipe.

The original cake recipe is from the Hershey's website and the frosting, I adapted from the back of the Hershey's tin. I like to use whipping cream, rather than just butter alone, when decorating a cake because it is lighter than butter and makes a firm frosting.

The cake is very much like a devil's food cake but I think it is much better than the boxed version. This one is moist, very rich and delicious.

I would have used the original recipe but I realized I was out of baking powder so I had to adapt the recipe for self-rising flour. This is what I came up with.

Chocolate (cocoa) cake

2 cups sugar
1-3/4 cups self-rising flour
3/4 cup cocoa (I used Hershey's)
1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup boiling water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and line two 9" cake pans with parchment or waxed paper. Combine dry ingredients in large bowl. Add all wet ingredients and beat on medium-high speed of mixer 2 minutes (batter will be thin). Divide between cake pans. Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool and remove from pans. Frost with chocolate frosting.

Chocolate Cream Frosting

2 sticks butter
2 lbs. confectioners' sugar
1-1/3 cups cocoa
2/3 cups whipping cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Milk to thin

Beat butter in medium bowl. Stir in vanilla flavoring. Add powdered sugar and cocoa alternately with cream, use milk a tablespoon at a time until frosting is easy to spread.