Boston Fudge Cake

I am a baseball widow.  From the first week of April to, God willing, the first week of October, my husband is glued to the Boston Red Sox.  Some years it's worse, and the Sox make the playoffs.  Then I smile dutifully, grit my teeth, and wait for November.  This week has been particularly difficult.  This is the one glorious week that all three of my children are away.  The oldest two are at sleep-over camp; the youngest is at "Camp Grammie" because, well, I simply begged my mother-in-law to give me 6 days alone with my husband.  I should have checked the MLB schedule first.

Sunday night the Sox played the Yankees.  Yes, yes, the same Yankees that have won 27 World Series--something like 22 of them at the expense of the Red Sox.  Of course, the 2004 ALCS made up for all that, and indeed, I was worried there with all the hoopla that year that we would conceive a 4th child.  Talk about the curse of the Bambino.   Who knew when I planned this special romantic week that the Yankees and the Sox would be tied for first place and that the first two games of this 3-game series would be evenly split such that Sunday's night's game would be a match to determine 1st place at this critical juncture in August?

Surely, however, such a match up was no contest for a little (and I mean a little) black lace and fish-net hose.  Silly me.  I knew that my number was up when I sidled up next to my husband in my most seductive fashion fully expecting to "distract" him from the game only to discover that Boston's Dustin Pedroia had just been thrown out trying to steal 2nd base.  Talk about a mood kill.  Instead of "Oh Baby" I got "JESUS CHRIST ON A CRUTCH." Not to worry--five days of romance still left.  Except that Monday and Tuesday the Sox play the Twins. 

The 1918 Red Sox and the start of the 86-year championship drought.

My mother-in-law can relate.  She mournfully shakes her head and shares with me that when the Sox have a night game, my father-in-law rolls in like clock work at 7:00 p.m.  It is apparently just enough time for him to give her a quick peck on the cheek, fill up a plate of food, and  settle into a Lazy Boy recliner for the 7:10 first pitch.  Her father was the same, except that he didn't have a T.V., and instead he cozied up to the radio fully expecting that her mother would deliver a small tumbler of Jameson's at the        7th  inning stretch. 

I guess I'm supposed to take comfort in the fact that this is a genetic and generational malady.  My mother-in-law knows better.  She takes comfort in chocolate cake.  It's a chocolate cake handed down from generation to generation of one Red Sox widow to the next.  This was the chocolate cake that they made when Babe Ruth was traded to the Yankees.  This was the cake that celebrated Carlton Fisk's 1975 arm-waving homer and mourned Bill Buckner's first base flub in 1986.  For me, this is the chocolate cake to eat when the Red Sox are in a pennant race.  I mean, if you can't have your man, at least you can always have chocolate cake.

Boston Fudge Cake
By Mary Kelly---a Boston Irish baseball widow, just like the rest of us, God rest her soul.
1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Cream together 1/3 cup butter and 1 cup of sugar.

2.  Beat 2 eggs.  Don't use an electric beater; beat them by hand.  The cake will apparently come out lighter, and besides, all that noise from the mixer will interrupt the game.

3.  Add 2 squares of melted unsweetened chocolate to the eggs, and add to the butter/sugar mixture.

4.  In a separate bowl, blend together 3/4 cup milk, 1 cup of flour, 2 level tsp of baking powder, and 1 tsp. of vanilla.  Don't worry about the dishes you will have to clean.  The game's on and you have plenty of time.
  
5.  Slowly blend together with the butter/sugar/egg mixture.

6.  Bake in an 8--9" square pan in an oven preheated to 350 degrees for about 30 minutes.

 7.  For the frosting:  Mix together 1 and 1/2 cups confectioner's sugar, 1 tbsp butter, 1 and 1/2 squares of melted unsweetened chocolate.  Slowly add evaporated milk to moisten the mixture and get it thick and frosting-like.    Spread on the cooled, but still slightly warm cake, and think about November.