Hello again everybody! I always feel sheepish only coming on here for help, but hopefully this is a simple question…

I’m baking the All-American Chocolate Butter Cake for a little guy’s birthday party tomorrow. I have always loved loved loved Rose’s recipe for Triple Devil’s Food Cake, but I need a couple 6-inch layers and 9-inch layers, and don’t feel like doing any math. So I thought I’d just use the handy doubled recipe for chocolate butter cake that Rose already provides in the back of TCB (page 486 - 3-tier wedding cake.)

However, while the first part of this recipe (for 2 6-inch and 2 9-inch layers) appears to be double everything in the base recipe on page 54 (with the exception of the baking powder, which I was expecting)——- the butter is off. In the doubled recipe, it calls for 1-1/2 c. butter. The base recipe calls for 1 c., so shouldn’t this be 2 c.? Is this a typo?

Sheesh, I said it was simple but once I typed it out, it sounds complicated. Hope it made sense and/or I apologize if this has already been addressed elsewhere! Thanks so much to everyone who is always so gracious in providing help and answers. I need to chime in on posts more often myself, but I get so sucked into reading everyone else’s responses…and this forum can be addicting…so I have to be careful!

Thanks again!

Amy

Yes, you are right, but it will work either way—Rose posted a note on the main blog about the page 54 recipe a while back:

“you must have a very early printing of the cake bible bc i corrected this in subsequent printings. it will work with the smaller amount of butter but i increased it to make it more moist and forgot to increase the volume. it is indeed 8 ounces or 16 tablespoons.”

Double of 16 tablespoons is 2 cups, but the original was 12 tablespoons, or 1.5 cups when doubled.

Thanks so much, Matthew! Awesome. Yep, my copy of TCB is from a secondhand store and *ancient*. 

I went ahead and did the 2 c. of butter thinking that must be it, so I’m glad to hear it’s fine either way. Have a great night!

For future reference, Amy, the base recipe is not the one on page 54. They’re the same cake alright, but the ingredients on p 54 are calculated in order to work in 1 1/2” tall pans. The wedding cake on p 486 is calculated for 2” high pans. So it’s a happy accident for you that doubling p 54 works out to be the same recipe as p 486 for 2x the 6+9” layers.

I mention it because you may love this cake so much - I do!! - that you’ll want to make it again and again in different sizes. Assume your pans are 2” tall? In that case, refer to the actual base cake recipe on p 493. That makes the correct amount of batter for a single 6"x2” pan, and you can use the Rose Factor system to figure out batter amounts for any other size you want. The amount of butter in the base cake, btw, is 75.67 grams in the corrected version. The only place Rose forgot to change the butter was in the wedding cake, so I’m betting you actually do have a corrected edition.

Am actually making three small layers of this today for my own birthday cake, which I’ll take to share with family next week! The bottom tier of my January bake-off contribution. Stay tuned. 

Carolita - 23 January 2010 05:06 PM

Am actually making three small layers of this today for my own birthday cake, which I’ll take to share with family next week!

Happy Birthday Carolita!

Ditto - Happy Birthday Carolita!!

Happy Birthday Carolita!

Awww, thanks guys!! 

Hi Amy,

I’m glad you asked the question about the possible typo because it made me realize that my Cake Bible is the 1988 original. I’m still trying to figure out this site with its numerous and long threads. I’m never quite sure where I should be asking my question. Is there a list somewhere of all the corrections made to the Cake Bible in more recent reprints?

Heidi

I’m happy to read the corrections, since I too own an original 1988 copy, pictures falling out and all!  But it has been my ‘cake bible’ all these years, I do love it.

Happy Birthday Carolita!

Heidi (and anyone else who’s wondering), Rose has published all the corrections to date in her cookbooks at a link on her blog. Click on Blog (upper left this page, to the right of her picture). Once there, look on the right-hand side of the page and scroll down under the heading Categories. You’ll see one called “Book Errata”. They’re all there!!

Thanks for the birthday wishes, Linda!

Thank you Carolita.  I will check it out and print it to put in the book.

Carolita,

Thank you VERY much for that information. Like Linda, I too will print it out for future reference.

Heidi

Happy Belated Birthday, Carolita

Not belated, CRenee. My birthday is actually this Tuesday coming. I’m baking early because the cake is traveling with me to my brother’s tomorrow. Thanks for the good wishes!

I think it is so fun to bake my own birthday cake.  I baked my favorite chocolate cake and top it with the lacquer glaze in November.