Velvet Almond Fudge Cake

Becky with Grandma's dog Nina
ca. 1980, Nahcotta Boat Basin

A "chocoholic's" delight, this cake is easy and really needs no frosting, since it already has has a triple dose!

Velvet Almond Fudge Cake

1-1/2 cups sliced or blanched slivered almonds

1 pkg (12 oz) chocolate chips

1 pkg chocolate fudge or chocolate cake mix

1 pkg (3.4 oz /4 serving size) instant chocolate fudge or chocolate pudding mix

4 eggs

1 cup sour cream

1/2 cup water

1/4 cup oil

1/2 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp almond extract

Toast almonds at 350° F for 3 to 5 minutes; allow to cool. Sprinkle 1/2 cup of almonds on bottom of well greased 10 inch tube pan.  Set aside remaining almonds and chocolate chips.  Measure remaining ingredients into mixer bowl.  Blend; then beat at medium speed 4 minutes.  Stir in chips and almonds.  Pour into pan and smooth--batter is fairly thick. Bake at 350° F  for 65 to 70 minutes, or until cake begins to pull away from sides of pan.  Do not underbake.  Cool in pan 15 minutes.  Remove and finish cooling on rack. 

Serve with dollop of whipped cream or scoop of ice cream, if desired. 

Mom's Chocolate Applesauce Cake

Mom mad

Mom (and friend) ca. 1955

e this cake for many birthdays and special occasions in our family. It is a fairly simple, moist cake, but the chocolate whipped cream makes it taste divine.

Mom's Chocolate Applesauce Cake

1 pkg chocolate cake mix

(preferably a "basic" one without added pudding)

1 tsp soda

1-2/3 cups applesauce (about 14 oz)

(the original recipe called for "1 can" but they don't seem to sell it that way these days)

2 eggs

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1/4 cup water

Preheat oven to 350° Fahrenheit.  Grease and flour two 9-inch round cake pans. Beat cake mix, soda and applesauce with electric mixer.  Add eggs, oil and water and beat for about two minutes on medium speed.  Bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until done.  Fill and frost with Chocolate Whipped Cream.

Chocolate Whipped Cream Frosting

2 cups heavy cream

1/3 cup powdered sugar

2-1/2 Tbs cocoa

1/2 tsp vanilla

Sift powdered sugar and unsweetened cocoa together. Add to cream and vanilla. Mix together; do NOT beat.  Chill at least two hours, then whip until stiff.

Sherrie's Apple Cake

My brother's first birthday

Sherrie's Low-fat Apple Cake

Most Apple Cake recipes seem to contain quite a lot of oil or butter, but there is a really good packaged mix (Little Granny's Northwest Apple Cake) which has no oil and the only liquid is from the apples, eggs and vanilla. The packaged mix isn't readily available in most stores and it is quite expensive, so I "tweaked" some apple cake recipes and came up with my own version, which is quite moist and tender. I confess I chickened out on omitting oil entirely, but it has only two measly tablespoons!

1 cup sugar

2 tart apples such as Granny Smith, 

peeled and chopped (about 1/2-inch dice)

2 eggs

2 Tbs oil

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp cream of tartar

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp cloves

1/4 tsp cardamom (optional)

1/2 cup dried cranberries (optional)

1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)

Preheat oven to 350° F. Place sugar and chopped apples in a large mixing bowl and stir to start macerating the apples. Add eggs, oil and vanilla. Mix the dry ingredients and spices together in a separate bowl (or sift onto waxed paper), then stir into the apple mixture until well combined. Stir in the cranberries and nuts, if desired. Pour into a greased 8-inch square pan and bake for about 35 minutes or into about 12 muffin cups and bake for about 18 minutes.

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.

Applesauce Fruitcake

The ubiquitous Christmas Fruitcake: It is typically dense and baked in a loaf pan (therefore shaped like a brick and heavy enough to serve as a doorstop), usually served in very thin slices (so thankfully one doesn’t have to ingest too much if forced to eat it out of politeness), crammed with nuts and dried fruit (by what stretch of the imagination are hard candied bits of citrus PEEL—the stuff you throw away when you’re eating an orange!—and translucent flavorless bright GREEN cherries considered fruit?), and is sometimes presented to family and friends during the Yuletide season (the gift that says “I really don’t like you very much.”)

In the middle ages fresh food was so hard to come by that having some withered pieces of dried fruit in the winter was a treat. Hell, times were hard, plagues were rampant, and having anything to eat was probably a treat! We have better transportation and refrigeration now—we can eat fresh fruit year-round. But traditions are traditions, so here’s my family’s fruitcake recipe. It includes cocoa, does not contain candied peel, and it’s actually pretty good.

Dad & Rick, Christmas 1953
(No cordless power drills in the 1950s)

Applesauce Fruitcake

2-1/2 cups flour

1-1/4 cups sugar

1-1/2 Tbs cornstarch

2-1/2 Tbs cocoa

2-1/2  tsp soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp EACH cinnamon, nutmeg, 

    cloves, allspice

1/2 cup red wine* 

  (I confess: we use Manischewitz Blackberry)

2 cups applesauce

2/3 cup vegetable oil

1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

4 or 5 rings of dried, sweetened pineapple, chopped*

about 6 oz dates, chopped*

1 cup dried cranberries* 

   (or raisins if you prefer)

1 cup dried cherries*

 (or 1 small container glacé red cherries if you really must)

Preheat oven to 350° F.  Prepare one 10 inch tube pan by cutting parchment or waxed paper to fit bottom.  Grease pan, insert paper, and grease paper.

Sift dry ingredients into a very large bowl; then stir in wine, applesauce and oil.  Fold in nuts and fruit. Bake for about one hour, or until cake tester inserted in center comes out clean.

*NOTES: the natural foods section of most supermarkets is a good source for some of these dried fruits; it is usually easiest to cut these fruits using kitchen shears. If you do not wish to cook with alcohol you may be able to substitute a fruit juice (such as blackberry or cherry), however I haven’t tried it and would suggest you add just a small amount of vinegar with the juice to increase the acidity level and help the baking soda.

Sherrie’s Carrot Cake

This is the old fashioned favorite classic we sold at Ocean Park Crab and Seafood Market. We used the Cream Cheese frosting at the market, but I've included the recipe for a Buttermilk Glaze also (it uses up some of the remaining pint of buttermilk and is very good for a change from the frosted cake. It soaks in and gives the cake a dense moist texture).

Sherrie’s Carrot Cake



Aunt Peggy & Uncle Lee, Dec 24, 1958
(Carrot Cake would be good for a wedding cake!)



2 cups all purpose flour

2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp cinnamon

3 eggs

3/4 cup oil

3/4 cup buttermilk

2 cup sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 cups grated carrots
   (about 4 med-lg)**

8 oz can crushed pineapple, drained
   (about 2/3 cup)

3-1/2 oz (1-1/3 cup) flaked coconut

2 cups chopped walnuts

Stir dry ingredients together; set aside.  In large mixing bowl beat eggs.  Add oil, buttermilk, sugars and vanilla extract and mix well.  Mix in dry ingredients and blend thoroughly.  Stir in carrots, pineapple, coconut and nuts.  Pour into greased and floured 9x13 pan; bake at 350° F (dark pans 325° F) for 55 minutes.  You can make about 30 cupcakes instead—bake 22 to 25 minutes. Cool and frost with cream cheese frosting--or if you prefer use the Buttermilk Glaze instead!

**Note: instead of grating the carrots, you can peel, cut off the ends, cut them into chunks and put them in the food processor with the oil and process until they are “grated.”

Cream Cheese Frosting

8 oz cream cheese, softened

1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, softened

1 pound powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1/4 to 1/2 tsp lemon juice

With mixer, cream butter and cream cheese together. Add powdered sugar, vanilla and lemon juice and mix until creamy.

Buttermilk Glaze

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup buttermilk

1/2 cup butter

1 Tb white corn syrup

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp vanilla extract

Combine all ingredients except vanilla in saucepan; bring to boil.  Boil 5 to 6 minutes, until thick and syrupy.  Stir in vanilla. Pour over the warm cake.

Gramp’s Apple Cake

Don Chisty, ca 1922

Grandpa Don Christy was a really good cook, making hearty breakfasts for the family after a morning spent digging clams on the Long Beach Peninsula. This old-fashioned Apple Cake was one of his specialties.

Gramp’s Apple Cake

4 cups peeled and diced apples
2 cups sugar

1/2 cup oil
2 well-beaten eggs

1 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour 

2 tsp soda

2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp salt

1 cup chopped nuts

Preheat oven to 325° Fahrenheit.  Generously grease a 9x13-inch pan. Combine flour with salt, soda and spices (sift or stir together in a bowl). In a large bowl, mix apples and sugar.  Stir in oil, eggs and vanilla then mix in dry ingredients. Fold in nuts .  Pour into pan and bake for 45 minutes.  Spread topping over cake while still warm. 

Topping: 

1 stick butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup evaporated milk

While cake is baking, combine  in medium saucepan.  Cook for 10 minutes; let cool.  Add 1/2 cup shredded coconut.

Lazy Daisy Oatmeal Cake

This cake was so very popular in the 1960s. Since retro is "in" I think it is time to bring it back in to fashion. This is a fairly dense and moist cake and the broiled frosting is so good you may find it hard to resist pulling off bits and eating it like candy. I usually bake with butter, which would probably work just as well in the cake, but the original recipe calls for margarine.

Lazy Daisy Oatmeal Cake

2 1/4 cup boiling water

1-1/2 cup Quick Quaker oats

3/4 cup margarine

1-1/2 cup sugar

1-1/2 cup brown sugar

1-1/2 tsp vanilla

3 eggs

2 1/4 cup flour

1-1/2 tsp soda

3/4 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

Preheat oven to 350° Fahrenheit.  Grease and flour a 13 x 9 x 2 pan.  Pour boiling water over oats and let stand while preparing the rest of the cake.

Cream margarine, sugars and vanilla until smooth.  Add eggs and mix by hand until light and airy.  Sift flour, soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg.  Mix oatmeal into creamed mixture, then add sifted ingredients and mix well. Pour into prepared pan and bake 50 to 55 minutes.  Spread with Nutty Coconut Frosting.

Nutty Coconut Frosting

1/2 cup melted butter (1 stick)

1 cup brown sugar

6 Tbs milk

1 cup chopped nuts

1-1/2 cup shredded coconut

Mix butter, brown sugar and milk in small saucepan; bring to boil.  Remove from heat, add nuts and coconut.  Spread over oatmeal cake while still hot, then broil until frosting is browned and bubbly.


Mom in Olympia, WA, ca 1949