Excellent Chocolate Fudge Cake and Frosting

It isn't hyperbole--this really is an excellent cake, well worth making "from scratch."

Excellent Chocolate Fudge Cake

3 squares unsweetened chocolate

Me with cousin Terri, Roseburg, OR ca. 1955
(Chocoholics from childhood)

2-1/4 cups sifted cake flour

2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, softened

2-1/4 cups firmly packed light brown sugar

3 large eggs

1-1/2 tsp vanilla

1 cup sour cream

1 cup boiling water

Preheat oven to 350° F. In a small bowl melt chocolate over hot, not boiling water. Let cool. Grease and flour two 9-inch cake pans. Sift together the flour, soda and salt.

In a large bowl mix together butter and brown sugar, then add eggs and beat at high speed for five minutes until light and fluffy. Mix in vanilla and cooled melted chocolate.

Using a wooden spoon, stir in half the dry ingredients alternately with half of the sour cream, beating well with the spoon after each addition until batter is smooth. Stir in boiling water. Pour into prepared pans (batter will be thin).

Bake at 350° F. for 35 minutes or until centers of cake spring back when lightly pressed with fingertips. Cool in pans on wire racks for about 10 minutes, then run a thin knife around sides of pans to loosen and turn onto wire racks to cool completely.

Chocolate Fudge Frosting

4 squares unsweetened chocolate

1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, softened

1 pound powdered sugar

1/2 cup milk

2 tsp of vanilla

Melt chocolate and butter in a heavy saucepan over low heat just until melted. Combine sugar, milk and vanilla in a deep bowl and stir until smooth, then stir in chocolate mixture. Place bowl in a larger bowl filled with ice and water, then beat with a wooden spoon until frosting is thick enough to hold its shape when spread.

Use about one fourth of the frosting to fill between the layers and the remaining to cover the cake.