Chocolate Pound Cake with Old Fashioned Fudge Icing

I made my first pound cake not too long ago, and after the pleasant (and delicious) experience I decided to branch out and try another flavor.  My hubby's stepmom made the most amazing chocolate pound cake with a fudge icing one night when we were over there (think icing being poured directly over the hot cake just out of the oven....) and that sealed my decision to take on this recipe from the Junior League's Perennials cookbook.

Some chocolate on chocolate cakes are too much for some people.  I may not be in that camp, but there are those out there who don't particularly care for the "death by chocolate" types of confections.  The good news is that this is a cake even those said individuals will love.  The actual cake's flavor isn't so overpowering, letting the rich fudge icing get its share of the limelight as well.

This icing is the kind that everyone's grandmother used to make.  The kind you cook.  I'm not sure what it is about cooking chocolate icing, but it makes it so much better than the frosting you simply whip in a stand mixer.  Simply put, this icing takes the cake (pun intended).

Chocolate Pound Cake with Old Fashioned Fudge Icing Adapted from Perennials Cookbook
Printable Version
Cake Ingredients
3 C sugar
1 C unsalted butter, softened
1/2 C shortening
5 eggs
3 C flour
1/2 C cocoa
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 C milk
1 tsp vanilla

Icing Ingredients
2 C sugar
2/3 C milk
1/2 C butter
1/4 C cocoa
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla

For the cake:
Preheat oven to 300 degrees and grease and flour  a 10 inch cake tube pan.

Cream sugar, butter and shortening until light and fluffy.  Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Sift together flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt in large bowl.  Set aside.  Combine milk and vanilla in separate small bowl.  Set aside.

With mixer on low/medium speed, add dry ingredients and wet ingredients to butter/sugar/shortening mixture alternately, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients.

Pour into prepared pan.  Bake 1 hour and 20 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Cool in pan for 10 minutes.  Remove cake to wire wrack or plate to cool completely.

**I had maybe a tsp of batter overflow from my cake, so stick a pan under your cake in the oven just in case.  Better safe than sorry!

For the icing:
Combine all ingredients except vanilla in heave saucepan.  Bring to boil and boil 2-4 minutes, stirring constantly until mixture slightly thickens.

Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.  Beat with electric mixture until creamy.  Pour over cooled cake.

Now take that spoon and scoop out all of that delicious icing that's pooled in

the middle and around the sides :)