Home Sweet Homemade: Big Money Starlight Double-Delight Cake

Homemade Chocolate Cake

This recipe is a $25,000 prize winner (first place!) from Pillsbury's 3rd Grand National Recipe and Baking Contest (currently known as the Pillsbury Bake-Off) in 1951.

According to Dollar Times, that's the equivalent of $233,049.00 in today's dollars! That's big money!

It's a delicious chocolate cake, with a chocolate cream cheese frosting that gets added to the batter to make a wonderfully textured cake!

Ingredients:

6 oz. cream cheese
3/4 cup butter, divided
1 teaspoon vanilla
6 cups (1 1/2 lbs.) confectioner's (powdered) sugar
1/4 cup hot water
4 oz. unsweeted baking chocolate, melted
3 eggs
2 1/4 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup milk

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 350°. Grease and flour two 9-inch round cake pans.

2. With a mixer, beat cream cheese with 1/2 cup of the butter with the vanilla until smooth. Beat in 3 cups of the powdered sugar. Slowly add the hot water, beating well. Add the remaining sugar and beat until smooth. Blend in the chocolate until smooth and combined.

3. Reserve 2 cups of the cream cheese mixture (this will be used to frost the cake with later). Take the remaining 2 cups and add 1/4 cup of the butter; mix thoroughly. Blend in the eggs, one at a time. Beat for 1 minute.

4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and the salt. Add 1/3 of the flour to the batter; then 1/2 of the milk. Beat well. Add another 1/3 of the flour, the rest of the milk, then add the rest of the flour, beating well after each addition.

5. Divide the batter evenly between the 2 prepared cake pans. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

6. Cool completely. Frost with the reserved frosting.