Carol’s Chocolate Cake (with green icing to celebrate our Irish) – Photo: L. Weikel (Missing from Photo: A big glass of ice-cold milk)
Carol’s Chocolate Cake
We had some pre-birthday cake tonight. My middle son’s birthday is this week, and even though we decided not to officially celebrate until next weekend, I baked him a chocolate cake with buttercream icing on it this weekend anyway. Just because.
The cake I baked today was the ‘official’ cake of my sons’ childhoods; my ‘go to’ cake recipe that I baked for birthdays (and only birthdays) for years and years.
Officially, in the household I grew up in, this cake was known as ‘Carol’s Chocolate Cake.’ This was not because my sister Carol came up with the recipe. In fact I doubt she even knows where the recipe originated. I’m sure I don’t know. But it was called Carol’s Chocolate Cake because she was the one who baked it.
This wildly popular darkly chocolate and seductive confection was a dessert we would have only on rare, celebratory occasions – although while I was growing up, this chocolate cake was not the official birthday cake.
NOT the Official Birthday Cake of My Youth
No, the official birthday cake while I was growing up was ‘Aunt Grace’s Cake.’
Inasmuch as I have 985 more posts to write in order to fulfill my 1111 Devotion commitment, I’m going to save a chitchat about Aunt Grace’s Cake for another post.
Although, truth be told, I really can’t talk about one without mentioning the other. You might think it odd that I did not carry on the legacy of having Aunt Grace’s Cake be ‘the’ birthday cake for my kids, but there are a couple of reasons why that happened.
How the ‘Official’ Designation Shifted
First and foremost, since my sister Carol is 13 years older than I, she grew up, went to college, and married well before I was out of the house. As a result, Carol was gone but the cake needed to be baked. And so I was tasked with becoming its baker. It was a recipe I ‘brought to the marriage,’ so to speak, and since I knew how to bake it from having taken up the reins when Carol grew up and moved to Massachusetts, and the recipe was easy, it became our official birthday cake.
The second reason was because Aunt Grace’s Cake was never one that was baked in our house. As can be gleaned from its name, it can also be deduced – and you would not be wrong in making that deduction – that it was baked at Aunt Grace’s house. Indeed, all I ‘knew’ about Aunt Grace’s Cake was that my mother would buy what seemed to be vast numbers of Hershey’s bars, walnuts, and eggs, and would drop them off at Aunt Grace’s house days before any of our birthdays.
I never saw the recipe, nor did I ever think I could master this feat of orgasmic culinary wizardry. This was mostly because my mother would just rave and rave over it – not once did she even feign an interest in baking it herself. (Smart woman, my mother.)
A Cake’s Daunting Legacy
As a result, I had it in my head for the longest time that it was something only an expert in the kitchen could bake. Or a Hungarian – as it was a recipe my Aunt Grace (who was an aunt by love and affection, not blood) had brought in her head as a child when she emigrated here from Hungary.
So I never even tried. Not until, oddly enough, about eight or nine years ago.
Instead, through pretty much the first 30 years of Karl’s and my marriage (and consequently our sons’ lives), I remained loyal to the achingly delicious, tried and true, now Aunt Carol’s Chocolate Cake. It was the official birthday cake of the Weikel household.
And I’ll tell you the secret to why this has always been exquisitely pleasing: it has a robust cup of coffee in it. Yum. So not only do you get the caffeine hit of cocoa, but also of coffee. Add sugar, butter and flour and you have a hit. But top it off with homemade buttercream icing?
Yeah, you get the picture.
An Impossible Choice
Fast forward to Son #2’s 31stbirthday: When asked which cake he wanted me to bake for his birthday (which again, he opted to celebrate next weekend, since it falls in the middle of the week), he asked for ‘the walnut cake’ – which is another name for Aunt Grace’s Cake.
I could tell from the lightning-quick looks that flashed between him and his wife that my son’s choice may have been slightly influenced by my daughter-in-law’s unabashed passion for Aunt Grace’s Cake. Not that any of us suffer for that selection, mind you. (Smart son I have.)
But what the heck.
Especially considering what I wrote about last night and the preciousness of making our ‘time’ count by virtue of the experiences with which we choose to fill it, I decided we all needed a pre-birthday fix of Aunt Carol’s Chocolate Cake.
Just for old times’ sake.
(T-985)