Cake rituals.

One of the things I love about cooking and food is the relationship between certain foods and our memories. My stepdad fondly remembered his grandmother in Oklahoma baking him a certain chocolate caked called Gertrude Armstrong Cake. Now I'm not quite sure the evolution of its name, but having a fondness for baking, when I met my stepdad, I decided to do some research and find a recipe for his favorite childhood sweet treat.

Everytime I spend time with my mom and stepdad in Washington (and when they lived in Utah) I have to make this cake ( I feel guilty if I don't), and sometimes I've been known to make 2 cakes during my visit. When I visited them the first week of September, I made him one cake with its traditional uber sweet (thanks to powdered sugar) frosting. The second go round, I made it with a chocolate ganache frosting - which is pictured above (my personal favorite).