Mike Douglas’ Buttermilk Chocolate Cake

Occasionally, I made a non-movie-star-related dish that I am really proud of. For the Mildred Pierce Dinner and a Movie extravaganza, I made a chicken and waffles dish that made my chest puff up like a proud pigeon!

This is a dish featured in the fabulous Brunch at the Mildred Pierce Restaurant book.

It is MAGNIFICO! If you fancy having a go at this, I wrote all about it over here.

I had some buttermilk left over from the waffles so I searched the recipe spreadsheet and spotted this Mike Douglas recipe. When I read through the headnote, I was super excited because of an anecdote about one of my all-time favourite celebrity recipes – Phyllis Diller’s Garbage Soup. This soup has the honour of being the first in my Top 100 Movie Star Recipes. it’s something I make a couple of times a year at least.

I knew that Phyllis had demonstrated this on the Mike Douglas show,

but I didn’t know the whole story. Here’s what food writer Johna Blinn says…

Over a lunch of steak and tomatoes, TV host Mike Douglas was recalling some of the more memorable culinary moments on his show. One incident in particular, seemed a favorite of Mike’s as he said, “We gathered up all the left-overs – tired old steak bones, remains of vegetables and all the scraps of salad we could find – and put it all together. That’s how Phyllis Diller’s famous garbage soup was invented, right here on the show. The audience could see we weren’t serious, for we made up the recipe on the spot.

Well, I never! Every year or so I do a search of the internet to see if I can find this bit of TV gold, but no luck so far. Do get in touch if you know how I can get to see this – and the previous episode, too!

I would like some firemen to bring me a corsage – wouldn’t you?!

Every time I think about Phyllis, I have a little chuckle. She is just someone who really makes me laugh. This has been on my desktop forever. It tickles me.

But back to Mike’s cake. Luckily for me, I was making this cake on a day when the best cake maker I know was staying in my house – Caterina, aka Battenburg Belle of Kitchen Confidence. I basically got all the ingredients out and left her to it. Naturally, she created a masterpiece. Here she is in action

and here are a couple of shots of her delicious cake.

Made in a large round cake tin (9 inches in diameter), the cake took about an hour to bake. Cathy said she’d recommend splitting it between two cake tins if you don’t have a large oblong or round pan.

Highly recommended if you have buttermilk to use up or you just fancy a really moist and tasty chocolate cake. It was a big hit. 6 dinner guests had a slice each, two brunch guests the next day took a piece home each, Cathy took two pieces home, Mr R took one, and I had the last slice for breakfast on Monday. ONE HELLOVA BIG GREAT CAKE!

If you are making Mike’s cake, I recommend listening to this ditty as you do so. I had no idea that Mike was a singer before he was a chat show host, but it makes perfect sense that he provided a buttermilk recipe as being one of his faves…