Dinette Cake with Chocolate Butter Frosting

When I was a child, the custom in our family was that the Birthday Boy or Girl chose the dinner menu and the birthday cake. My mother wasn’t much of a baker, so most birthday cakes were made from mixes. Except mine. I always requested the one cake that she made from scratch. She called it a “One Egg Cake”. The recipe had been cut out of a newspaper or magazine years before and carefully saved . . . I just realized that I don’t know where she kept it.

It was a plain vanilla cake made in a square 8x8 or 9x9 pan and frosted with chocolate butter frosting. Cakes may have come from boxes, but frostings were always homemade. Chocolate butter or vanilla butter, straight out of my mother’s old Betty Crocker cookbook.

In my teens, disaster struck. The precious One Egg Cake recipe disappeared. We searched high and low but it was never seen again. I began a fruitless quest to find a substitute. As an adult, when I purchased my own Betty Crocker cookbook, one of the first recipes that I tried was “Dinette Cake” which called for one egg and was made in a square 8x8 or 9x9 pan. It was close, but not the cake from my childhood. Luckily, my newer edition Betty Crocker cookbook still had the same chocolate and vanilla butter frostings recipes.

It may not be quite the same, but at least I no longer have to wait until my birthday to have a one egg cake frosted with chocolate butter frosting.
Verdict: Yum!! These are keepers!!



Dinette Cake(source: Betty Crocker)

1 ½ cups cake flour or 1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
¾ cup milk
⅓ cup shortening
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla

Heat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour square pan, 8x8x2 or 9x9x2 inches. Measure all ingredients into large mixer bowl. Blend ½ minute on low speed, scraping bowl constantly. Beat 3 minutes high speed, scraping bowl occasionally. Pour into pan.

Bake 35 to 40 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool.


Chocolate Butter Frosting(source: Betty Crocker)

⅓ cup soft butter or margarine
2 ounces melted unsweetened chocolate (cool)
2 cups confectioners’ sugar
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla
About 2 tablespoons milk

Mix thoroughly butter and cooled chocolate. Blend in sugar. Stir in vanilla and milk; beat until frosting is smooth and of spreading consistency.

Fills and frosts two 8- or 9-inchy layers or frosts a 13x9-inch cake.

To fill and frost three 8-inch layers, use ½ cup soft butter or margarine, 3 ounces melted unsweetened chocolate (cool), 3 cups confectioners’ sugar, 2 teaspoons vanilla and about 3 tablespoons milk.

Recycle: milk bottle, vanilla bottle
Compost: eggshell