Auntie Anne's Best Chocolate Cake: Guest Post by Bobbi Mumm

Yesterday was my birthday, and I know that Bobbi Mumm baked this especially for me. She sent this post and the photo on my birthday, so I know I'm right! Sadly, it was virtual since she lives in Saskatoon. I've been longing for this recipe since she first mentioned it on Facebook, so I'm so glad to welcome Bobbi Mumm as a guest blogger. Bobbi is a "mystery/chocolate cross-over" social media friend. That's a mouthful, and so is this chocolate cake!  

Bobbi Mumm is a mystery and thriller writer in Saskatoon, Canada where she works half-time as an event planner at the University of Saskatchewan. Married to a nuclear physicist, she has four children, two of whom are college-age. The twins remain at home. Bobbi practices Karate, as do her kids.

A year ago, Bobbi completed her first novel, Cream with Your Coffin. This past year, she signed with a U.S. literary agent and is seeking a publishing home for the novel. Bobbi was thrilled this week to learn that Cream with Your Coffin is now a quarter-finalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. An excerpt can be read here  
http://tinyurl.com/amazoncreamcoffin   Almost finished her second novel, thriller De Rigueur Mortis, Bobbi has fallen in love, all over again, with the mystery that is Paris.

BOBBI MUMM:

Thanks to Janet Rudolph for her tireless championing of mysteries and chocolate. I happen to know that she knows a whole lot about corporate team-building and event planning, too.

In Cream with Your Coffin, American event planner and mother of twins, Lucy Beam, is determined that, by fair means or foul, she’s going to carve out a new life in bucolic Saskatoon, Canada. But juggling social climbing with the parenting of twins—on top of being a Yank oddity—in this, oh-so-Canadian university town is a lot to handle and outspoken Lucy Beam’s fresh start is doomed from the get-go. Pickled neighbours and philandering vets drowned in vats of milk are only the beginning of her troubles.

In spite of her trials, Lucy spends time in her kitchen, cooking for her family and friends. There are five of Lucy’s recipes in Cream with Your Coffin. The most important recipe—the one that helps Lucy uncover the identity of the murderer—happens to be chocolate cake.

This is not any old chocolate cake recipe but one that has been handed down in my family for generations. You’ll see in its simple ingredients how it would have been a standby for the early homestead wives on the prairies.

This photograph was taken by my friend, Eve Kotyk, photographer, writer, and artist extraordinaire. http://tagonist.net Eve and I spent a lovely afternoon photographing the cake and then eating it with our mystery writer friend, Larry. I hope you enjoy it, too.

Auntie Anne’s Best Chocolate Cake
(From Lucy Beam’s recipes in Cream with your Coffin)

2 tbsp vinegar in 2 cups milk
2 eggs
2 cups sugar
2½ cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
6 tbsp cocoa (sifted)
½ tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
2/3 cup melted butter or oil

Line bottoms of round pans with waxed paper or butter and flour to prevent sticking. Add vinegar to milk to start milk souring. Cream sugar and eggs until fluffy. In a separate bowl mix dry ingredients. Mix everything together and beat two minutes with hand electric mixer or 1 minute with a stand mixer.

Bake at 350˚F until toothpick inserted in centre comes out clean, around 40 minutes for two round layer cake pans, around 20 minutes for cupcakes.

In layer cake use raspberry jam as filling. Makes two 8 inch rounds or 24 cupcakes.