Chocolate cake recipe
Yummy Chocolate CAke
Christmas traditions
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!
I love the cake!
Apples, Nuts and Homemade dolls!
Chocolate Mincemeat Cake
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 cups sugar
- 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 1/2 cups milk
- 1/2 cup shortning
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 cup (or more to taste) mincemeat
- 1cup walnuts or pecans, chopped fine
Instructions
- In a large mixing bowl combine flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, and 1/4 tsp salt.
- Add milk, shortening, and vanilla and mincemeat. Beat with an electric mixer on low speed till combined. Beat on high speed for 2 minutes. Add eggs and beat 2 minutes more. add nuts and stir gently.
- Pour into 2 greased and floured 9x1 1/2 inch round baking pans. Cool on racks.
- Mama made a fudge frosting and put it on the cake while it was still warm so it would sink into the cake a little bit. She never had a recipe so I can't share it with you. However, you can use one of the Pillsberry chocolate frostings and just put it on the cake while the cake is warm so it will melt into it a little.