My wonderful Mother celebrated a birthday on the last of June. I won't tell you which one because I don't want to get in trouble, but no one who didn't know her would guess her age correctly because she looks so terrifically splendid for her age and I have luckily inherited that gene. Along with the young looking genes, my dear Mother also passed down to me a deep love of chocolate. So when I asked her what she wanted for her birthday dessert I was not surprised in the slightest to her that she wanted something really chocolaty--maybe a Snickers cake. Here was my solution.
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Chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and carmel and snickers to decorate the top. Perfect.
P.S. Please excuse the mess in the background, and yes, my
serving tray is my pizza stone. Nothing else was big enough around.
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I got the recipe off of the Hershey's Coaco box. The cake and frosting recipe are on there. I've always wanted a chocolate cake recipe that was just as easy as a box recipe, tasted great, and was a little bit denser than a normal cake--not super light and airy. This recipe is exactly that. The end result is the perfect combination of dense, almost brownie like deliciously chocolate richness. So good. I made it for dessert at my in-laws and they scarfed it down. It always amazes me how much teenage boys can eat but they set a new standard when they each ate a couple pieces and still wanted more.
Chocolate Cake
2 cups Sugar
1 3/4 cup Flour
3/4 cup Cocoa Powder
1 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1 1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp salt
2 Eggs
1 cup Milk
1/2 cup Oil
2 tsp Vanilla
1 cup Water, boiling
Preheat oven to 350 and put a pot of water on to boil. Grease well two 9-inch cake pans and line the bottoms with parchment papers. Stir together ingredients sugar through salt in a large bowl. Add eggs through vanilla and mix on medium speed for 2 minutes. Stir in the cup of boiling water--mixture will be very thin. Pour evenly into the tins and bake for 35-40 minutes, until a cake tester comes out clean. Allow to cool a bit, loosen the edges and turn out the cakes onto a wire rack to cool completely.
Chocolate Buttercream
6 Tbsp Butter, softened
2 2/3 cup Powdered Sugar
1/2 cup Cocoa
1/3 cup Heavy Whipping Cream
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
Beat the butter until light and fluffy. Add remaining ingredients and mix until just combined. If the mixture seems too dry/thick/stiff add a tiny bit more cream. If the mixture is too runny add a bit more powdered sugar.
Toppings:
Caramel Sauce
1 bag fun size Snickers, cut into chunks
When the cakes have completely cooled, level them. Place a dollop of frosting on a cake board to keep the bottom round of cake in place. Drizzle the bottom round of cake with the caramel sauce. Place a layer of Snickers chunks on the caramel then add half the buttercream and spread out to the edges. Place the top round of cake on the buttercream. Add a layer of caramel sauce, the remaining buttercream frosting then the Snickers chunks. A final drizzle of caramel finishes the cake. I like to let that last drizzle go over the edges and run down the sides. Enjoy!
The recipe itself is pretty easy. My tip is to stick to it. I know, not really a tip, but I usually never stick to recipes exactly. You really do need to grease and flour your tins really well though if you want them to come out. I could have used a bit more grease and flour and would have then saved one of the sides of my cakes. Good thing chocolate frosting is a great glue for cake.
Needless to say, it was a big hit. Now I don't mean to be cocky. My biggest fear is that I make something and people don't like it. My wonderful husband knows just how much an underwhelming reception of my food crushes my confidence so he's always very dramatically positive. The best is when we got to my mom's house with the cake. All the grandkids were jumping up and down and the adults oohed and ahed. My nephew Boyd (age 3) wanted to sing Happy Birthday to Grandma as soon as he saw the cake, so he led every one in a verse of "Happy Birthday to Grandma." As soon as we finished the song he expected cake right then and there. He was very disappointed to find out that just because you sing the song doesn't mean you get the cake. Unfortunately you have to eat dinner first. Those cruel parents.