Baking Blackheart: Daddy Tom's favorite Chocolate Cake

In my family, everyone knows what "home" food my step dad and Rose and Ryan's "Daddy Tom", misses most; Mema's chocolate cake. Now this is pretty much sheet cake, but with love. And Daddy Tom always gets a corner piece. This is also my favorite chocolate cake, but it MUST be eaten with BlueBell Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream! Yum, yum, yum! Chef Blackheart is also a big fan, so when he did well on his entrance exams for school, I told him I'd make chocolate cake. THIS IS NOT DIET FOOD, but it is made from scratch. It's also easy to mess up, so I'll walk through it step by step.

Ingredients:

Cake:

2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup water
1 cup butter (not salted)
1/4 cup cocoa
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 eggs (beaten)
1 tsp. vanilla

Icing:

1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup cocoa
6 tbsp milk
1 (16oz) powdered sugar (or 3 3/4 cups for those who buy in bulk)
1 tsp vanilla

What you need:

small sauce pan
strong spoon
two large bowls
One small bowl
9 1/2"X 13" baking pan
a mixer (or a strong arm for those whose mixer is broken or missing)

How to make:

1. Combine flour, sugar, and baking soda in a large bowl.

2. In the small pan, melt most of the butter on low heat.

3.Add water and and then mix the cocoa in the pan.

4. STIR FREQUENTLY!!! Do not burn the cocoa. Keep this in medium to low heat until it boils
5. Add the cocoa mixture SLOWLY to the flour mixture.

6. Add the Buttermilk, eggs (beaten) and the vanilla to the mixture.

7. Mix well. Place in a lightly greased pan. (I used a 9 1/2" by 13")

8. Bake for 30 minutes on 350F on the middle rack.

At this point, take a breath. And if you're me, run back through it and make sure you did everything correctly... then figure out you forgot to add the buttermilk. :) Did anyone else catch that in my picture? Please imagine me using children appropriate curse words such as dang, snap, fudge, as I quickly pull the cake out of the oven. Yes! I can still save it! I poured it back in the bowl with the help of Chef Blackheart and mixed in the buttermilk. Regreased the pan with olive oil, poured and threw it back in the oven. At that point I just crossed my fingers, washed a couple of bowls and the pan that I would need for the icing, and tried to smile.

And now the icing...

And since I hate having to scroll so much, here's the ingredients again:

1/2 cup butter

1/4 cup cocoa

6 tbsp 2% milk

1 box powdered sugar (or 3 3/4 cups)

1 tsp vanilla

1. Put butter in pan on low heat until it is mostly melted

2. Add milk and cocoa.

3. STIR and stir and stir some more. DO NOT BURN THE MIXTURE. It will stink, it's hard to clean out, and it doesn't make for good icing. I don't have any pictures of this step, because I was stirring.

4. Turn up the heat to medium low until it starts to simmer/ boil

5. Pour the powdered sugar into a large mixing bowl.

6.Add the cocoa mixture to the bowl with the powdered sugar.

7. Hand mix the mixture until you get all the powdered sugar off the sides. Then beat with a mixer until smooth. I've done this plenty of times with no mixer, but the mixer is easier, and I'm trying to get my money's worth on that thing.