MiMi's Chocolate Sour Cream Pound Cake

My granddaughter's birthday was this past weekend and she decided she wanted a "home-made" Chocolate Sour Cream Pound Cake for her birthday cake.  I had not made one in quite some time and as I started looking to make sure that I had all of the ingredients on hand, I was surprised to find that I did not have this recipe on my blog!  

My granddaughter likes this cake with vanilla ice cream on it, topped with maraschino cherries!  I have to say it is pretty delicious like that! 

This is one of those cakes that "haunt" you 'til it's gone!  

1 1/2 cups butter, softened

3 cups sugar

5 eggs 

3 cups All Purpose flour

1/2 cup cocoa

1 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

1 (8 oz.) sour cream

1 cup boiling water

2 tsp. vanilla extract

Soften butter.

Cream butter well.   Gradually add sugar to creamed butter, beating well. (This is the secret to a good pound cake....creaming the sugar and butter until smooth and creamy.)

Add eggs, one at the time, beating well after each addition.

Combine flour, cocoa, soda and salt in a separate bowl.  

Add flour mixture to the creamed mixture, alternately with sour cream -- beginning and ending with the flour mixture.

Mix well after each addition.

Add boiling water and mix well.  Stir in vanilla flavoring.

The batter will look somewhat thin after the addition of the boiling water.

Pour batter into a well-greased and floured tube pan.

Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour and 20 minutes, or until cake tests done. 
(Cake is done when a toothpick inserted in middle of cake comes out clean.)

Cool cake in pain on a wire rack for 10-15 minutes.

Invert cake onto plate.

Flip cake upright on wire rack to cool completely.

After completely cool, place cake on cake plate for serving.

ENJOY!!!

Southern SWEET Tea

This post is in response to a request from one of my sweet, blogging friends, Denise, from Colorado, who asked me a LONG time ago to post on my blog how us Southerners brew our sweet tea.

Having grown up in South Georgia, where some would say our sweet tea bordered on being a SYRUP, I forget that not everyone drinks their iced tea the way we do here in the South.  Believe it or not, my husband is actually from a family that drinks their tea UN-SWEET!  I think that MUST surely be against some Southern Law... right! Don't worry...I converted him over YEARS ago! ( :

4 Family Size Tea Bags
1 - 1 1/3 cups of sugar (or 3/4 cup Splenda, if desired)
1 gallon size container
Lemon, if desired

Bring small pan of 3-4 cups of filtered water ALMOST to a boil.

Just when the water is about to boil, remove pan from heat and add tea bags.

Allow tea bags to steep in pan of hot water for 7-8 minutes.

When timer goes off, remove tea bags from pot, squeezing them GENTLY over pan. (Discard tea bags.)

Immediately add sugar to the pan while steeped tea is still hot...so that sugar will dissolve.

Stir thoroughly until sugar is completely dissolved.

Pour the steeped tea into a gallon size container that has already been filled about half way with cold filtered water. Add enough water to fill to the top.

Chill in the fridge until ice cold and serve over ice.

Note:  In the South, you MUST have a very fancy gallon container like the one pictured above!  No Southern dinner table is complete without a "JUG of Sweet Tea"! 


It is really only good for about 2 days...after that it's time to make a new batch!

Oh...and if  you TRULY wanna be Southern, it's really wonderful with a squeeze of fresh lemon (or lime)!  YUM!

** HINT :   Our family always keeps this little luxury on hand so you can have 100% pure lemon juice anytime you want it....with just a squeeze!  Enjoy!