Tasty Tuesday: Ho Ho Cake

January 29, 2013 at 8:46 am , by Lydia Beiler

My mom used to make this cake for company often when I was growing up and while I liked it, since we’ve started to eat more healthful I really disliked the Crisco taste in my Mom’s recipe.  Recently my brother-in-law requested this cake for his birthday and since he and our daughter share a birthday I said I’d just make a cake for both of them.  Originally I was going to just substitute butter for Crisco in my mom’s recipe but happened across this Ho Ho Cake recipe that uses only butter and figured I might as well just go with it.  And wow, it is absolutely amazing!  All the great taste of the Ho Ho cake I remembered with the rich, creamy taste of butter.  I’ll warn you though, this cake is not for someone who dislikes sweets as it is rich and quite sweet- a little goes a long way. Butthe great thing is, it can be frozen so if you can’t eat it all when you originally make it, put it in the freezer and pull it out for an easy dessert later.

Ho Ho Cake
Your favorite chocolate cake (either boxed mix or from scratch + ingredients)

Preheat oven to 350. Prepare your chocolate cake.  (I used my favorite Devil’s Food cake recipe- I really need to post it on here.  It’s amazing!)  Grease a jelly roll pan. Pour batter in the pan and spread around until it’s even. Bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes; this will depend on the cake you bake, but begin to check it after 15 minutes.

Remove cake and let cool for 30 minutes. While cake is cooling, mix middle layer.

For middle layer:
1 cup butter
½ cup milk
3 cups powdered sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
¼ teaspoon salt

Cream butter and slowly add milk and vanilla. Add powdered sugar and salt, beating until mixture is thick, combined and spreadable. (This takes a bit of beating, so keep at it!)  Spread in an even layer on chocolate cake. Set in the freezer for 15 minutes while you make the chocolate frosting.

For chocolate frosting:
½ cup butter
¾ cup cocoa
3 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
8-10 tablespoons of water, added one at a time

Cream butter and vanilla. Add cocoa powder and powdered sugar until combined. Add water 1 tablespoon at a time until mixture is smooth– you want the frosting to be spreadable, but not thin.

Remove cake from freezer and frost. Store in the fridge.

Recipe from How Sweet Eats.

For other recipe ideas, check out Balancing Beauty and Bedlam’s Tasty Tuesday, Blessed with Grace’s Tempt My Tummy Tuesday, and 33 Shades of Green’s Tasty Tuesday.