This Is Who Ina Garten's Famous Chocolate Cake Is Really Named After
If you are trawling the web in search of a new go-to chocolate cake recipe, you might want to wander in the direction of Ina Garten's Beatty's chocolate cake which, with five stars and 2,510 reviews on the Food Network's site, could legitimately be considered one of the best recipes out there. In her review, Jesse Szewczyk of The Kitchn called the cake "absolutely delicious" and an "elevated take on a simple chocolate cake." It all comes down to the addition of coffee, which gives the cake an added chocolate kick.
Those of us who follow the Barefoot Contessa know that Garten and her husband Jeffrey have an enduring love story which began when Ina was just 15 years old, visiting her brother at Dartmouth College in 1963 (via Insider). So why didn't the culinary queen name one of her most famous recipes after her husband of more than 50 years? The answer is simple.
Beatty's chocolate cake honors Ina Garten's friend
Food blogger Monte Mathews revealed exactly whether Beatty was real, who Beatty was, and the story behind why Ina Garten chose to honor Beatty by naming one of her most famous cakes after this individual in his blog, Chewing the Fat.
Mathews said the recipe comes from Michael Grim aka The Bridgehampton Florist, who was a regular on the "Barefoot Contessa" and that Beatty was his grandmother. Mathews writes: "His (Grim's) grandfather had a milk route in Pennsylvania Dutch country and Beatty used to bake this cake to take to the customers on his milk deliveries" and that the recipe had been in Grim's family for years.
It appears that after Garten included this recipe in her 2006 book, "The Barefoot Contessa at Home," chocolate company Hershey tried to get credit for developing the recipe — a move which got two thumbs down from the blogger. This may explain why, as one reviewer of Garten's recipe points out, the recipe appears as Hershey's Black Magic Cake (via Food Network). And since recipes cannot be copyrighted (via Eater), we suggest you give the different iterations of Beatty's chocolate cake a look before deciding on which version you might want to use.