Red Chocolate Cream Cake

This dense chocolate cake is filled with a wonderful cream (think twinkies!) and covered in a rich fudge frosting.  Every bite is soooo delicious!

This recipe is a little slice of my past (no pun intended).  This is my grandmother’s Red Chocolate Cream Cake.  It is the cake I’ve had nearly every birthday of my life.  Every time I eat it I remember being a little girl at grandma’s house.  It is definitely an old-school recipe.  Don’t file this one under “easy”, but it is worth every minute of effort in putting it together.  I just love family recipes!

Yep- that’s my cute little six-year-old self with a birthday cake from grandma!  Fun memories!

Want to know how to make this?  Here we go:   (printable recipe)

INGREDIENTS:

Cake

• 1/4 cup Crisco
• 1/4 cup salted butter (at room temp)
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 2 unbeaten eggs
• 2 1/4 cups cake flour
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 2 squares (1 oz. each) of unsweetened baking chocolate (melted and cooled)
• 1 teaspoon red food coloring
• 1 teaspooon baking soda
• 1 Tablespoon vinegar

Cream Filling:

• 2 Tablespoons flour
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/4 cup Crisco
• 1/4 cup salted butter (at room temp)
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• pinch of salt

Icing:

• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/4 cup salted butter (cut into cubes)
• 1 cups semi sweet chocolate chips
• 1 teaspoons vanilla
• 2 1/4 cups powdered sugar

DIRECTIONS:

Cake:

• Preheat oven to 350F degrees.
• Cream shortening and butter together and add sugar.  Mix well.
• Add eggs, one at a time, beating on low between each one.  Beat until creamy.
• Sift flour and salt together.
• Add flour/salt, alternating with buttermilk, beating on low speed.  Do not over-beat.
• Add food coloring and warm (not hot!) melted chocolate.  Mix on low speed.
• Lastly, in a small cup mix together baking soda and vinegar and add to the batter while foamy.
• Mix but do not over-beat.
• Divide into two 9-inch pans that have been sprayed with cooking spray and have a circle of parchment paper set in the bottom.
• Bake at 350F degrees for 25-30 minutes.  Check at 25 by inserting a toothpick.  When it comes out clean, cake is finished.
• Remove cakes from oven and allow them to set in pans for 5-10 minutes.
• Tip cakes out of pans on a cake rack and cool completely.

Filling:

• While cake is baking, start to make filling.
• In a small saucepan, cook flour and milk together on stove, stirring often until thick and smooth. Cool completely.
• Add the rest of ingredients to a mixing bowl and cream together.
• Add cooled flour mixture and beat on high until a light whipped cream consistency (about 5 to 8 minutes).
• Trim layers of cooled cake and place filling between the two layers.

Icing:

• In a saucepan on the stove, heat milk, butter (cut into cubes) and chocolate until completely melted and smooth.
• Cool completely.  Add powdered sugar and vanilla and beat on high.  Frost top and sides of cake.
• Enjoy!!!

My thoughts:  I have a lot of thoughts… At the front of my mind is this:  My grandma Ann is 95 years old and she made this cake well into her late 80’s for us.  At age 42 I am barely able to keep track of all these steps…I am very impressed by her baking and multi-tasking abilities!!!  Wow.

Ok- other thoughts:  This cake tends toward dry.  Mine turned out great this time, but sometimes it’s a bit dry.  Be meticulous with your measurements and err toward less rather than more with the dry ingredients.  I also read that you can add a bit of oil to any cake recipe to moisten it up.  Might be worth trying?  That said- the flavor of this cake is out of this world- really, no other cake I’ve had tastes like this one.  It’s wonderful!

The filling….beat it FOREVER.  The biggest mistake I’ve made with this cake over the years is the cream filling.  You really do need to beat it for 5-10 minutes.  For a girl without a stand mixer this is an ETERNITY of beating filling, but you really have to.  It is soooooooooo good.  I think I need to double it next time, I like it so much.

The frosting is a glaze-type frosting.  It is very soft at first.  The best thing to do is to refrigerate about half of it until it is spreadable, frost the tops and sides, and then pour the remaining soft frosting over the top and just smooth it over the whole thing.  Eventually all of it hardens into a spectacular smooth fudge icing.  You will love it!

I hope you get a chance to try this incredible cake!  

Many thanks to grandma Ann for the wonderful recipe (and for celebrating my birthday by making this cake for so many years!)~  Love you!!

Celebrating grandma’s 95th birthday this year!

Cakes!!!  Other fun cake recipes!!!