Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
News

Yid.Dish: Happy Early Mother’s Day (Chocolate Cake)

Several months ago, The Jew & The Carrot featured the recipe for my mom’s amazing chocolate cake – the one that my brother and I begged for every birthday – mostly for the thrill of eating sweet, homemade frosting directly off the beaters.

Then yesterday, a reader sent me the following email:

“Long ago you posted a recipe for your mom’s chocolate cake. Finally I got around to making it for Shabbat dinner this past week. Since I’m really into my new camera and having lots of fun taking food pics, I thought I’d share the image. I used real roses and borage [to decorate it] too. Everyone loved the cake-the recipe is a keeper.” – Emily

With Mother’s Day coming up on Sunday, I figured now is the perfect time to share this delicious cake once again. Happy Mother’s Day Mom!

Carol Koenig’s “Moistest Chocolate Cake”

I used to love my birthday cakes decorated with roses made from the frosting below, colored with a little red food coloring. These days, I’d probably use a drop or two of beet juice to achieve that perfect pink color.

Cake:

2 cups flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

¾ cup cocoa

1 tsp real vanilla

2 cups raw sugar

1 cup canola or vegetable oil

1 cup organic milk

2 eggs (free range, of course)

1 cup hot coffee (I actually recommend instant stir-in coffee for this recipe. Save the good-quality strong stuff in your pantry for breakfast.)

Combine dry ingredients. Add oil, hot coffee and milk. Mix at a medium speed for 2 minutes. Add eggs and vanilla and beat 2 minutes more. Pour into a greased and floured 9×13 or layer cake pan. Bake 25-30 minutes at 350 degree.

Frosting

1/2 lb powdered sugar

2-3 tbsp milk

1 ½ heaping tsp soft butter

1 tsp vanilla

Beat with mixer 3-5 minutes. If too thick, add milk, a smidge at a time. Variation: add 2 tbsp cocoa for chocolate frosting.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.