Chocolate Fudge cake with Marshmallow Icing

I was about 12 years old when Mama had mailed in some stuff to some place and in return received some paper back cookbooks…

I poured over those, again and again… each and every picture made me want to run to the kitchen and use up all of Mama’s butter…. ( or Papa’s butter, however you wanted to look at it) blueberry muffins, popovers, and various other baked goods, that I promptly  scarffed down once the timer went off.

But no matter how many times I made a recipe… they could never look like the picture…

Even now.. I get a little ticked when I work all day on a cake or other baked goods and it comes out looking like a 12 year old made it.. or 5 year old… depends on how foul I feel.

My latest kick in the face on how elementary my food looks, was when I was trolling in a certain site called foodgawker…. Apparently  you submit your recipe/blog and it can get more hits, meanwhile troll around and look at other people’s blogs/recipes…. Problem is…..

They ALL look like from the same person…  these people must spend hours setting up the back ground to take a picture of one cookie..  and none of them look like they even thought about using flash... as they set up their slice of cake on a table made from walnut….

Makes my burnt Formica countertop look like… well… burnt formica…

Oh well…

I can only hope their food tastes like crap.

Here is a cake that doesn’t taste like crap… in fact this is my go to recipe for chocolate cake…

Sugar, flour, salt and baking soda in a bowl

Coco powder, butter, and water in a pot… bring to a boil or heat till butter is melted

Add your dry ingredients

Add some eggs, buttermilk, and vanilla

Prepare you pans… for this time I used two round cake pans… that I have oiled and dusted with coco powder.. don’t skip that step.. the dusting part.. other wise your cake will come out of the pans in chunks, and that isn’t very pretty…

I made a marshmallow icing this time, added some pastel psychedelic colors and walla!! An ugly cake!

Print Recipe

Recipe:

1 cup (2 sticks) butter 

1/2 cup  unsweetened  cocoa

1 cup hot water

2 cups All-Purpose Flour

2 cups  sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup buttermilk

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease and flour a 9" x 13" cake pan. ( or pan of your liking.. bundt, two round pans . Just make sure you adjust your time accordingly.. it took 25 minutes for the round pans)

Melt the butter; stir in the cocoa and hot water. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, sugar, soda and salt. Pour the cocoa mixture over the dry ingredients, stirring to blend. Beat in the buttermilk, eggs and vanilla.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake the cake for 30 minutes, or until it tests done. (You'll smell the chocolate aroma, and the cake will begin to pull away from the edge of the pan). Remove from the oven and cool on a rack

Marshmallow Frosting:

Yield: 4-1/2 cups
ingredients
1  1/2 Cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1  16 ounces jars marshmallow crème
1 Cup powdered sugar


Directions

In very large mixing bowl beat softened butter with mixer on medium for 30 seconds, until light and fluffy. Add marshmallow creme. Beat until smooth, scraping sides of bowl. Add powdered sugar; beat until light and fluffy. Frost Cake. To store frosting, cover and refrigerate up to 3 days or freeze up to 1 month. Bring to room temperature before frosting cake. Makes 3 cups.