Interesting cake. Thanks for sharing the recipe.

Looks like a fun recipe to try. But 3/4 Tablespoon of baking soda seems excessive. Could it be either 3/4 teaspoon baking soda, or possibly baking powder instead of baking soda? ??

Nickel, I checked the recipe again, thinking I had made a mistake, but no, it says 3/4 Tablespoon of baking soda. This is from their cook book they put out some years back. It could be wrong as I had to correct them on the amount of cornstarch they had down for their black raspberry pie. They had 1/2 cup and it should have been 1/4 cup. I have not made any of the recipes but they all sure sound good. This bakery was in Indianapolis for years.

Sue

Thank you for double-checking, Marilyn_Sue. I want to try the recipe soon because the mixing method is new to me, I have all the ingredients easily at hand, and it just plain sounds delicious! But I will reduce the baking soda to 3/4 teaspoon.

Thank you for posting the recipe. It sounds delicious!

Isn't a whipped cream cake with a whipped cream frosting too much whipped cream at once?

Elmer: It doesn't look like there is any whipped cream in the cake; only the frosting.

Thanks, I misunderstood the heading and the name.

I have a recipe for cake made with cream-no extra fat, that is iced with whipped cream. I put layers of fruit between the layers-usually three kinds. it makes a wonderful cake. this ones sounds very good as well. My own like this one does not keep.

the recipe sounds yummy....but I am fairly sure 3/4 tablespoon of soda is correct....that would be 2 teaspoons and with the acid of the cocoa and the buttermilk that's what provides the leavening. There is no baking powder.

lindac92, sounds like a perfect set up for making two cakes. It's a rough job, but I may be up to it, lol! First up will be the 3/4 teaspoon baking soda version ... I'll report in a day or two.... :-)

Let us know how you like the cake. I have not made it. The recipe book also has a white cake version!

Sue

That is really a pretty cake.

Sue

:O)

Well first try results were mixed. I followed the method: first whisked the drys together (but used 3/4 teaspoon baking soda instead of 3/4 tablespoon). Added the butter, crisco, and scant tablespoon buttermilk; mixed on low for 2 minutes. Good so far: mixture looked exactly like wet sand. Then added the quarter-cup buttermilk and the 'sand' turned into 'clay'! But I persisted with directions, and let my Kitchen Aid slap that clay around for 3 whole minutes. Relieved when the next addition broke the clay into a sludge, which indeed turned into a delicious thick smooth batter with the addition of the eggs and rest of the buttermilk.

My cake pans are 8 1/2 inch, not 8 inch, so I didn't expect to get layers high enough to bisect, but this was a learning exercise about the cake itself so okay. Cake baked nicely, pulled away from edges and smelled wonderful. Per directions, I immediately inverted the baked cakes but onto wire rack (instead of plate) to cool. So here is the result:

It tastes great! But as you can see, the wire rack left deep imprints so next time I'll give the cake 5 or 10 minutes to cool in the pan, then double-flip it so it cools with the pretty side up.

More important is getting rid of the "sad streak" -- that dense dark line along the bottom of the cake, commonly caused by over-mixing. It's possible that the recipe was written for electric hand mixers, not the more powerful stand mixers so common today. So I found this video by mycakeschool that shows how the reverse-creaming method should have looked -- no "clay" phase!, and much less mixing time.

I'll try the recipe again in a few days, using the updated mixing method. If that doesn't work, I'll try a 3rd time and use more baking soda. Oh the sacrifices we make for research! ;-)

The mixing method in the recipe sounds weird to me. I'd cream the butter and sugar add the eggs then alternate adding the flour mixture and buttermilk by thirds.

Bumblebeez, yeah, me too. One reason I wanted to try this recipe was to try out the different method.

I wonder if the recipe was cut down to size but the mixing way was for a big commercial mixer of some kind, since this was from a big bakery. Thank you for taking the time to bake and let us know how it went.

Sue

Sooz: If you come up with a way to duplicate that cake, let me know. It looks and sounds delicious!

Marilyn Sue's explanation on the rather unusual quantity of baking soda makes sense. 3/4 TB is an atypical quantity since 1 TB = 3 tsp and it doesn't divide neatly into quarters. Measurements are normally quantified by either whole tablespoons or in whole or partial teaspoons. Multiplying up or dividing down leavening can be an art form.

My second attempt: I modified the timing of the method based upon more updated explanations of the "reverse creaming" or "paste" method of cake mixing. Basically, mixed all the drys for 60 seconds, added the fats and a drizzle of buttermilk and mixed about 2 minutes until it looked like "wet sand." Mixed the eggs & buttermilk; added half of this mix to the 'wet sand' and beat 90 seconds. Added the remaining wets in two pours*, beating 20 seconds after each pour.

*I also did the math to end up with half the batter with the original recipe's amount of baking soda, and half the batter at just one tsp baking soda. If you're really geeky, here's what I did. Original = 3/4 Tablespoon = 3/4 x 3 teaspoons = 9/4 teaspoons = 2 1/4 tsp. My whole batch contained 1 tsp baking soda. So to bring half the batch to original strength, I needed to add 1/2 of (1 1/4 tsp) = 1/2 (5/4) = 5/8 tsp baking soda to half the batter. I did this by reserving 1/2 cup buttermilk for the 'final pour', splitting this into 2 quarter cups, and mixing 5/8 tsp baking soda in to one portion. Then just before the final pour, I weighed out half the batter into a new bowl, and added the plain buttermilk to one bowl, and the baking soda/buttermilk into the second bowl.

Baked as before.

Did not like the result, of either batch!

The original recipe, high-amount baking soda cake looked nice and dark, and rose nicely. But it had a chemical-like smell as it baked, and a distinctly soapy taste. The smell dissipated over a couple days, as did the soapy taste. Possibly if you aged the cake just right, icing it at just the right time, you'd find the balance with the disagreeable flavor off-gassing but before the staleness set in.

The low-amount baking soda cake still showed a 'sad streak' at the bottom, so I think it needed more leavening, not less mixing (as I had thought going into this bake). It didn't taste as good as my first attempt either -- could being in the same oven with the chemically-smell of the other layer have contaminated it? Even DH, who was not involved in the baking, agreed with my assessment of the two cake's tastes.

Well, it's been fun learning a new (to me) method for cake mixing. And instructive to see first-hand what a big difference baking soda makes to the color of a chocolate cake. If I tweak this recipe any more, it won't be the same recipe ... although I'm tempted to try again, with maybe 1 1/2 tsp baking powder and 1/2 tsp baking soda ... or mixing the 2 1/4 tsp baking soda with the cocoa and some buttermilk and letting it set 20 minutes before proceeding ... or ???. LOL. Someday.

Thanks for sharing all of your results and for your experiments. I was really curious about the different method of mixing. I think I’ll stick to traditional methods for now.

I am impressed by investigative-type bakers who will try a recipe multiple times to get it right. Way to go, Nickel!

I suspect the soapy taste is due to the large amount of baking soda.

All, yes I had fun. Thanks for reading along.

Colleenoz, I suspect you're right ... DD once used 2 tsp baking soda instead of 2 tsp baking powder in a regular* waffle recipe, the results were inedible they were so soapy. Now we all pay attention to which ingredient we grab!

*(not a sourdough waffle, which could take some b.soda)

I'd think I'd use a stabilized whippeed cream to frost a cake like that...