An Old Family Fav for a New Wife!

This past October while the Phillies battled the Yankees for the World Series title, Georgia, a life long Yankees fan (I'm a devout Phillies Phan!) celebrated her 27th birthday. Setting rivalries aside, I decided to be a good new husband and bake her an old family favorite, the 1-2-3-4 Cake! The name of this traditional bundt cake is derived from the 4 basic ingredients and the quantity used of each. 1 cup of butter, 2 cups of sugar, 3 cups of flour, and 4 eggs. This has been a staple in my family for years - birthdays, holidays, anniversaries - you name it, we made a bundt cake for it. My family has experimented with many flavor combinations over the years: yellow cake with chocolate frosting, chocolate cake with vanilla frosting, yellow cake with orange frosting, and my personal favorite, orange cake with vanilla frosting! The possibilities are nearly endless.

Per G's request, I went with the traditional classic of yellow cake with chocolate frosting. After being married for only a little over a month, I really wanted to impress my new bride with my baking prowess! So I got the cake recipe from my Mom, a brand new bundt pan from Williams-Sonoma, and sought out a good chocolate frosting recipe!

I ended up using Ghirardelli 100% Cacao Unsweetened Chocolate after much deliberation in the baking aisle of the Super Fresh on my lunch break at work. I used the recipe on the inside of the wrapper for Mocha Buttercream Frosting sans the mocha. And to add a special twist to the cake, I substituted 1 cup of brown sugar for the white.

The result was a grand slam! ( If only the Phils could've used it to their advantage!) The buttercream frosting was rich and delicious and the addition of the brown sugar really added depth to the flavor of the cake. Georgia was very impressed with my baking feat as were our friends who came to celebrate the following Saturday with burritos and baseball! A winning combination, unless of course you're a Phillies Phan like me! Oh well, the Yanks' win was nice gift for G. Maybe next year. . .



1-2-3-4 Cake

1 cup of butter - 2 sticks
2 cups of sugar - 1 brown, 1 white
3 cups of flour
4 eggs
1 cup milk
2 tsp vanilla
3 3/4 tsp baking powder
Dash salt

1. Cream butter and sugar.
2. Mix with other ingredients.
3. Grease bundt pan and dust with cocoa powder for easy removal.
4. Pour batter into bundt and bake at 325 for an hour.
5. Remove and let cool before overturning bundt onto wire rack.
6. Let cake cool for an hour before frosting.

Ghirardelli Mocha Buttercream Frosting recipe can be found on the inside wrapper of the bar or at their website: www.ghirardelli.com