Sweet Sorrow Sourdough Chocolate Cake
August 19, 2007 By: almostgotit Category: Uncategorized, humor, food, recipes, chocolate, jobless
Creative Commons photo by divinemisscopa
This delicious if doleful affair nearly always falls. Which is why, in my extended family, we refer to it as “chocolate goo cake.”
Perfectly sympathetic fare for the joylessly jobless.
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2/3 cup shortening
1 2/3 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 cup sourdough starter
1 ¾ cup all purpose flour
2/3 cup sweet ground chocolate or cocoa
½ tsp. baking powder
1 ½ tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
¾ cup water
1 tsp. vanilla
Cream shortening and sugar; beat in eggs one at a time. Blend in the starter. Sift flour, measure, and sift again with other dry ingredients. Add to shortening mixture alternating with water and vanilla. Mix at low speed. Bake 350 degrees (for two 9” layers, bake 35 minutes; for one 9” square, bake 60 minutes)
August 19th, 2007 at 3:09 pm
Perfect, indeed, for the joylessly jobless. That’s a great name, by the way, for a punk rock band. And what a great idea–recipes for solace. I look forward to more. Check out The Rocky Road tomorrow. We’re posting your Sweet Summer Squash Chowchow, a recipe that could inspire any number of the joyless employed to quit their jobs!
August 20th, 2007 at 12:18 am
[…] chowchow is the best! She’s even posting recipes for the dolefully unemployed. Check out this chocolate cake! […]
August 20th, 2007 at 7:09 pm
So, I’m wondering, have you ever tried substituting butter for the shortening??
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I haven’t, but I’m sure it would be much better, sigh. (This recipe came from my frugal great aunts, for whom “oleo” seemed the more fiscally responsible choice, I’m sure!)
September 7th, 2007 at 8:04 pm
What is your recipe for starter? How do you maintain it? I have the exact recipe but it is so old I have few instructions to go with it. Thanks Brenda
September 7th, 2007 at 8:27 pm
Hi Brenda,
Thanks so much for visiting! My aunt would have used real sourdough starter, which she kept in a glass jar in the fridge and occasionally stirred to re-incorporate the black liquid that would rise to the top.
But much easier than the traditional sourdough starter, which was made using natural yeasts from the air, is the serially-ubiquitous“Amish Friendship bread” starter” which is very easy to make (here’s a story about Amish Friendship bread, with a recipe and directions very similar to the one I was given)
One thing I learned was that while you don’t refrigerate the Amish Friendship starter (as you can refrigerate traditional sourdough starter), you can freeze it in 1 cup portions (after the “day 10″ stage, when it is truly “starter”) — this way you don’t have to use or maintain it, and you also aren’t stuck with the ever-multiplying recipe that reminds me a little of a Star Trek Tribble attack…
March 14th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
[…] Sweet Sorrow Sourdough Chocolate Cake Attainable Affirmations for the almost-employed Humor is no jobstacle […]