Chocolate Chip Cake -- Baked for the Sixty-Eighth Year

I turned sixty-eight — no, sixty-nine. Wait. Born 1957, birthday April 12, 2025: I am turning sixty-eight. The math: 2025 minus 1957 is sixty-eight. I am sixty-eight. I have been miscounting. The miscounting is the retirement brain, the brain without a schedule, the brain that loses track of the years because the years are no longer marked by school years and semesters but by Passovers and Rosh Hashanahs and daily visits to Cedarhurst, and the marking is different, and the different makes the counting unreliable, and the unreliability is both humbling and slightly alarming for a woman who taught mathematics of language for forty-three years.

Sixty-eight. The book publishes in three weeks. The birthday and the book are arriving together, the sixty-eighth year of my life and the first year of the book's life beginning in the same month, April, which is the month of my birth and the month of Passover and the month when the garden is planted and the season turns and everything begins. April is the beginning. April has always been the beginning. April is when Ruth was born and when the book will be born and when the chain takes another link.

I made my birthday brisket. Sixty-eight years of brisket. The brisket that is in the book that will be published in three weeks. The brisket that is the chain. The brisket that is me. Happy birthday, Ruth. The brisket is ready. The book is ready. You are ready.

The brisket is the chain — but every birthday needs something sweet, and this year, with the book arriving and the miscounting corrected and April doing what April does, I wanted a cake that felt like a beginning rather than a monument. Chocolate chip cake is not a complicated cake. It is an honest cake, the kind you make when you are happy and you want the happiness to have a shape. Sixty-eight years old, one book in the world, one brisket already resting on the counter — this cake is for the other half of the celebration, the sweet half, the part where you sit down and eat something joyful and let yourself feel how ready you actually are.

Chocolate Chip Cake

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 35 minutes | Total Time: 55 minutes | Servings: 12

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
• 3 large eggs, room temperature
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips, divided
• Powdered sugar or chocolate glaze, for finishing (optional)

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven. Heat your oven to 350°F. Grease and flour a 9x13-inch baking pan or a 10-cup Bundt pan and set aside.
2. Whisk the dry ingredients. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt until evenly combined.
3. Cream butter and sugars. In a large bowl, beat the softened butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar together with an electric mixer on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 3 to 4 minutes.
4. Add eggs and vanilla. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix in the vanilla extract.
5. Alternate flour and sour cream. Reduce mixer speed to low. Add the flour mixture in three additions, alternating with the sour cream in two additions, beginning and ending with flour. Mix just until combined — do not overmix.
6. Fold in the chocolate chips. Using a spatula, gently fold in 1 1/4 cups of the chocolate chips, reserving the remaining 1/4 cup for the top.
7. Fill the pan and top. Spread the batter evenly into the prepared pan. Scatter the reserved chocolate chips over the surface.
8. Bake. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean or with just a few moist crumbs. If using a Bundt pan, check at 40 minutes.
9. Cool and serve. Allow the cake to cool in the pan for 15 minutes before turning out (if using Bundt) or slicing directly from the pan. Dust with powdered sugar or drizzle with a simple chocolate glaze if desired.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 420 | Protein: 5g | Fat: 21g | Carbs: 54g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 210mg