Penguin Cake

Well, you start with a penguin...

Actually, you start with a whole whack of cake. I admit freely that I used a couple of box cakes for this one: one No-name lemon cake that actually worked out the best of the "fake" cake, two SuperMoist, one or two "Pudding-in-the-mix" cakes and some other really damp sounding cakes and I have to tell you that they absolutely suck for stacking and carving. They're just too wet so I actually started cutting back on the oil and water that went into them and that helped a bit. The best things though were the cakes from the Recipe Box that I tried out. These were cakes that Joe's grandmother (the cake decorator) and mother made and, wow, do they work for this sort of thing. I think Erin has said something along the same lines, that the old recipe, from-scratch cakes have it all over the box ones, they're denser and have a much richer flavour (I've found). Having said that, here is the first one:

"My Inspiration Cake" (the February 1954 Women's Home Companion champion)

Bake 350F 35-40 min in 2 9" layer pans

Place 1 cup finely chopped walnuts over the bottom of the well greased and floured pan (I used whole pecans because I wasn't in a walnut mood)

Grate 2 oz sweet or semi-sweet chocolate and reserve (Do not use chocolate chips like a certain lazy person that I know)

Sift together: 2 1/2 cups cake flour
4 t baking powder
1 t salt
1 1/2 c sugar

Add: 2/3 cups Crisco (but you can use vegetable oil, discovered by aforementioned lazy person who was worried that she wouldn't have enough shortening for the icing)
1 1/4 milk
1 t vanilla

Beat at low speed for 1 1/2 minutes then at medium speed add 2/3 cups unbeaten egg whites and beat for another 1 1/2 minutes (or until you finish prepping the pans and sprinkling the nuts, whichever comes first).

Spoon batter carefully over nuts until you've used half of it. Sprinkle the grated chocolate and then spoon the rest of the batter over that. Bake as directed and then let it cool in the pans for 10-15 before turning out to cool completely. (Note to remember: if you use whole pecans and chocolate chips and aren't exactly "spooning carefully", you will end up with a cake where the nuts are at the top and the chocolate is at the bottom instead of what I think they intended.)

Will definitely make this one again, there were a really good tooth to it and I liked both the chocolate and nut blend with the vanilla (which, again, I'm a little generous with).