On July 16th, I received a message from my sister on our sibling group text: “Happy Heavenly Birthday Mom!!!” with heart emojis all around. Later, my brother texted “89.” At the time, I was finishing up at the pickle patch, but later I thought of this memory and texted “Wow! One cake I remember her making a lot is the chocolate chip cake in a tube pan. I have her handwritten recipe in my cookbook. I will need to try it.”
So, here is my sweet memory of my Mom.
Finding The Recipe
I hunted for the recipe and found it in my “cookbook”. It’s a collection of my handwritten recipes or clips of recipes in a bound book that’s falling apart from overuse. One thing you have to know about my mom is that she was a depression baby, meaning she would almost be an environmentalist by today’s standards. She had to make do with very little, so nothing was wasted, not even the back of an envelope. Yes, that is what she wrote her chocolate chip cake recipe on: the back of a taped envelope. I recycle scraps of paper, but not to that extent. Maybe if we all recycled scraps of paper, we could save a lot of trees.
On her recipe, it gives a substitution for sour cream, which was 1 tablespoon of vinegar and then up the milk to 1 cup. The reason I am mentioning this is that I used this substitution many years ago and I remember that my chocolate chips went to the bottom of the pan. It was either the sour milk or my mixing. The only other thing I changed was instead of margarine I used butter. So, remembering my failure years ago, I decided that this time I would use sour cream and find out how to mix this properly as the only instructions were to cream together the sugar and butter. To be fair there were directions, but maybe I wasn’t supposed to add all the ingredients at once. I just wanted this sweet memory to be a success this time.
Recipe and Directions
1/2 Cup Butter (softened)
1 cup Sugar
2 Eggs
1 Teaspoon Vanilla
2 Cups Flour
1 Teaspoon Baking Powder
1 Teaspoon Baking Soda
1/4 Teaspoon Salt
1 Cup Sour Cream
One 12-Ounce Bag Semi-Chocolate Chips
Bundt Pan
Directions:
Preheat oven: 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Butter the bundt pan. In a small bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt; set aside. Reserve 4 ounces of semi-chocolate chips for the topping.
Cream the butter and the sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Then add eggs one at a time and mix after each egg on low, just till mixed. Add vanilla and mix on low.
On low speed, add one third of the flour mixture and mix only till the flour is mixed in. Repeat with another third of the flour mixture, and now add half of the sour cream. Repeat until all flour mixture and sour cream is mixed in.
Next, using a spoon or spatula, fold chocolate chips until well distributed. Spoon the batter into the bundt pan and sprinkle with the remaining chocolate chips.
Bake in the middle of the oven for 30-40 minutes. I used a long toothpick to test when done. The top will be golden. Cool 10 minutes and then invert.
(Since this is my mother’s recipe, she used a tube pan that separated. I think, with a tube pan, its top is at the top, but with a bundt pan the top is when you flip it over. To keep the chips showing, I had to quickly flip again using another cooling rack so the chips would show and not to mess with the chip appearance. Alternatively, you could just put all the chips in the batter and dust the top with powder sugar.)
Happy Heavenly Birthday
I am so glad my sister reminded us of our mom’s heavenly birthday and this cake came to my mind. When we ate the cake, my 9-year-old grandson was visiting. You know me. I had to share the memory where the recipe came from.
One thing you need to know about my grandson is that he is a very picky eater and some things like chocolate is not always to his likening, but he loves chocolate chip cookies. Wouldn’t you know it, he piped right up and said this is the best cake and I rate it a 10 out of 10!
The next day, my husband gave him a small slice of “10” cake with his breakfast of strawberries. He said the cake is like giving him a doughnut, so what’s the difference. We laughed. So I am sure my mom is pleased that her great-grandson loves her cake and even eats it for breakfast. This sweet memory about my mom making chocolate chip cake and how we now call it “10 cake” will go on her page in my family tree that is housed on Ancestry and Family Tree Maker.
Happy Heavenly 89th Birthday, Mom!
It's Not a Mystery
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