Black Magic Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting @LucyBurdette

LUCY BURDETTE: I have a women’s contemporary fiction title coming out in July called THE INGREDIENTS OF HAPPINESS. The first line goes like this: “Things my mother taught me, part one: chocolate cake makes everything better.” 

How can I not celebrate this upcoming launch with chocolate cake, lots of it??

Our good friend Pat Kennedy brought a chocolate cake with buttercream frosting to a dinner party at our house one night. She called it “black magic cake.” Of course I needed the recipe! She had made it for her son’s 21st birthday (he must be in his 50’s now) and many times since. I searched for the recipe online and found it with these exact instructions, so I don’t know who made it first, but it’s definitely a keeper. I did reduce the salt to 1/2 teaspoon, because I always do... 

I also made a new kind of icing with cream cheese, heavy cream, vanilla, and only one cup of powdered sugar. It was delicious, not too sweet as buttercream can sometimes be. I think you could tweak it many ways, including adding some cocoa powder for chocolate on chocolate, or decorating with fruit—raspberries or strawberries would be nice. 

 Ingredients for the cake

1 3/4 cups of flour

2 cups sugar

3/4 cups cocoa

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 eggs

1 cup strong, black coffee

1 cup buttermilk or sour milk (milk with one TBSP cider vinegar added)

1/2 cup oil

1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 350.

Combine flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda and powder, salt in a large mixing bowl.

Add eggs, coffee, buttermilk, oil and vanilla.  Beat at medium speed for two minutes.  Batter will be thin.

Pour the batter into a greased and floured 13 X 9 X 2 baking pan or two 9" pans.

Bake 30-35 minutes for 9" pans; 35-40 minutes for oblong pan. I took mine out after 30 minutes and it was perfect. 

Frost with cream cheese frosting or a vanilla frosting or even chocolate.

Ingredients for the cream cheese frosting

8 oz cold cream cheese 

1 cup powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 and 1/2 cups cold heavy cream 

Whip the cold cream cheese for 1 minute in the mixer. Add the powdered sugar and vanilla and beat that for another 2 minutes, scraping down the bowl.

With the mixer on low, add the heavy cream slowly by pouring it down the side of the bowl so it doesn’t splatter. Turn the speed on to high and mix for another 30 seconds until it thickens. It will look like a thicker version of plain whipped cream when it’s done.

When the layers are cool, frost and store in the refrigerator until ready to serve.

About THE INGREDIENTS OF HAPPINESS:

Is there a recipe for the perfect life?

Thirty-two-year-old ‘happiness guru’ Dr. Cooper Hunziker has it all—a dream job as assistant psychology professor at Yale University, a soon-to-be published self-help book, The Happiness Connection, and the perfect guy. But there’s a problem. Cooper isn’t happy.

Of course, it doesn’t help that she’s facing cut-throat competition for her tenure at Yale, an accusation of plagiarism that could cost her everything, or that her new book has irritated the department chairman, who assigns her to co-lead a happiness group at the New Haven library.

As her friendship with the other ladies in the group flourishes, Cooper finds herself questioning her choices. Forced to face a life-changing betrayal, a gargoyle’s wisdom, and her own traumatic past, can she navigate her own path to happiness?

READ CHAPTER ONE 

ORDER THE BOOK 

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