Mrs. Garrison’s Red Devils Food Cake, A Simple Made From Scratch Cake, Perfect For The Holidays

I’m no great chef, but let me tell you, I can follow a great recipe!

If you are looking for a great, made from scratch cake to make this holiday season, this old recipe handed down in our family for decades may be what you are looking for. This Chocolate Red Devils Food cake has a simple list of ingredients and is a family favorite in our home. 

I can remember time in the kitchen with my great grandmother when I was a child.  She was a subtle and calm voice in the midst of my big and loud extended family. Her kitchen was organized, and she was a natural. She let me punch the dough when baking bread, lick the bowl after making cakes and made me watch at a safe distance when she was making her delicious apricot jam.

I am fortunate to have this and several of her recipes from a wonderful recipe book my grandmother put together for all of us a few years ago for Christmas. Images of her handwritten recipe cards live on for all of us in this precious book of timeless foods and some of the stories that go along with them. That is where I learned that in 1946 my great grandmother was living in Missouri on a farm with my great grandfather and their three children. Her neighbor and friend, Mrs. Garrison shared this recipe with her and it has been in our family ever since. Isn’t it special that the generosity and kindness of a friend continues to touch lives over 70 years later? That’s why I am sharing it today, because in my mind that is what the holidays are all about. Giving doesn’t have to be expensive to be impactful, it can be as simple as a recipe. A kind neighbor shared her recipe and now in the age of the cell phone and Instagram we still make this timeless cake for people we love and I imagine that it tastes just as great now as it did then. So you’ll see below the beautiful cursive writing that I see each time I make this cake, and if you choose to make it, then Mrs. Garrison’s kindness lives on again.

The cake isn’t difficult, but it tastes better than the box cakes I make when I’m in a hurry. When icing the cake I simply use the recipe on the back of the Hershey’s Cocoa but I add a bit coffee for extra bold flavor. Also, since it’s Christmas I crumbled a few Girardelli Peppermint Bark Squares on top.