Black Midnight Cake

I love Betty Crocker and I still think one of the best cook books ever is the Betty Crocker cookbook printed about 1974. I've been making this particular chocolate cake recipe for many years now (I'm so old, heh). I found that this recipe was the best for me when decorating cakes, this cake was easier to work with and it tasted good. :-)


Black Midnight Cake


2 -1/4 c Flour
1- 2/3 c Sugar
2/3 c Cocoa
1-1/4 t Baking Soda
1 t Salt
1/4 t Baking Powder
1-1/4 c Water
3/4 c Margarine (shortening)
2 Eggs
1 t Vanilla


Bake @ 350 for 30-40 minutes

Throw the dry ingredients in there

Mix them up.

Add your liquids.

Get your pan ready. Spray.

If it's a cake you will be wanting to take out of the pan, then throw some flour in there and a get flour on all the greased parts.

This makes getting it out of the pan much easier. (You could use cocoa powder instead)

Back to mixing in the wet ingredients. Beat the eggs in.

I filled this pan up a little too full.

Yum. Cupcakes.
While the cake is baking, I whip up the frosting. And frosting was on sale so I cheated and bought some plain vanilla frosting, added 4 oz of Cream Cheese and a tub of Cool Whip. Try it! It cuts down on the sweetness but makes it light and fluffy.
I mixed up some pink/red in a separate bowl.
My beautiful cake that overflowed its pan.
Frosted cupcakes.

Decorated

Back to the cake. Slice your cake into 3 layers (or two, whatever) Throw some frosting down on your base to hold the cake in place.

Put down the first layer, I thinned down some Raspberry jam with water and spread it over the cake.

Spread a layer of frosting over the jam. (this part is kind of messy) and repeat with the next layer. Don't put jam on the very top layer though. ;-) The point of piping the frosting on is to get close to the edge and seal it. I FAILED! I don't have a brain, but I did manage to do it right on the next layer.

After it's all assembled, finish frosting the cake.

All done.