Accidental S'Mores Cake

Ok so last night I planned on making these delish looking chocolate cake s'mores cookies from Jenny's blog over at Picky Palate. The plan was in full effect until I re-looked at the ingredients and realized I didn't have box cake mix. Me being an amateur I said to myself, "no biggie, I'll just make my own cake mix and voila!" Baha silly me. Soooo with the batter being not thick enough to hold a cookie form I decided to impromptu make a cake!

This recipe came from a combo of different recipes. The chocolate cake and the frosting came from the Hershey's "Perfectly Chocolate" Chocolate Cake recipe. The home made marshmallow fluff came from cdkitchen.com!

This will be the first of hopefully many posts on my baking attempts. Luckily this turned out fantastic and got devoured by my very grateful co-workers. So here it is. Hope you all enjoy! Ps...please excuse the craptastic pictures. My PowerShot is not the fancy smancy camera I wish it was :)

Chocolate S'Mores Cake

Ingredients: 
- 2 cups sugar
- 1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 3/4 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa
- 1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup milk
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 cup boiling water *

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour two 9-inch round baking pans.

2. Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Pour batter into prepared pans.

3. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely. Frost with "PERFECTLY CHOCOLATE" CHOCOLATE FROSTING. 10 to 12 servings.

"Perfectly Chocolate" Chocolate Frosting:

Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine
- 2/3 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa
- 3 cups powdered sugar
- 1/3 cup milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Melt butter. Stir in cocoa**. Alternately add powdered sugar and milk, beating to spreading consistency. Add small amount additional milk, if needed. Stir in vanilla. About 2 cups frosting.

Marshmallow Fluff:

Ingredients:
- 3 egg whites
- 2 cups light corn syrup
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Blend together egg whites, salt, and corn syrup for about 10 minutes until thick. With mixer set on a low speed, add in confectioners' sugar. After sugar is incorporated, add vanilla until blended.***

 To put the cake together stack the base cake layer on a plate, throw some fluff on top, add the next layer (repeat as necessary) then frost. Decorate as you feel! I know this is semi-complicated but trust me it really wasn't that bad!

*I left out the water in my cake. I'm not quite sure what this did or didn't do, soooo just wanted to let you know!
**I would personally do this whole thing with a hand mixer. I did it with both a stand and a hand mixer and the stand mixer just doesn't get the lumps out. Make sure you fully incorporate the powder sugar before you add more milk to keep the lumps at bay.
***This produces a TON of fluff. Feel free to half or quarter this recipe if you're just making it for this cake. But who doesn't love some leftovers for a nice fluffernutter? Also, I added in some crunched up graham crackers to this for the middle layer to make it a little less messy!