Chocolate cake recipe

What is your favorite memory of Christmas' past? When you were a child, a teenager? You know.... back in the olden days!

A huge crate of red apples, a big bag of oranges, pies baking in the wood stove--hand made baby dolls??? The list goes on and on, I am sure, in all our minds.

We didn't always have lots of presents, but we had the gift of family love and little things meant a lot!

It seems in my memory there always appeared a wooden crate of red apples, some oranges and nuts of all varieties to be cracked and eaten at will. I really don't recall Christmas presents-mama didn't teach us to believe in Santa Claus because she didn't want us to wonder why he brought bikes and such to other kids but not to us. We always knew the gifts we received were from mama and daddy.

Christmas morning mama aways awoke earlier than the rest of the family and began making pies and cakes. There were no recipes in the house when I was a little girl because mama just always knew how to make things. She knew how much baking powder or soda was needed depending on how much flour went into the bowl!! Pretty smart lady, don't you agree?

We probably had chicken as our main dish in the early years, because mama usually raised some chickens in the back yard if we lived in one place long enough for them to grow up. Sometimes we had ham and in later years turkeys began to appear for Holiday dinners.

Sometimes she would experiment as she baked and I believe that is how her "Famous" cake became a part of our holiday meals. One year she added some left over mincement in to the chocolate cake batter and--A new food was created!

Chocolate Mincemeat Cake--You either loved it or wanted to spit it out quickly! My brother Dwaine was known to be the one who loved it, the rest of us liked it or not at all!