Recipe Catch-up - Week of 9/6 - Cola Cake

This recipe was inspired by a trip to Cracker Barrel. We went for breakfast one day, and my husband noticed a card on the table advertising their Coca-Cola Cake. Since we were there for breakfast, he didn't get it, but I mentioned I thought I'd made one before. I remember my friend J. had a Coca-Cola cookbook, and we tried a few recipes from it the summer I lived with her & her family. Anyway, all this led to the suggestion that I should make the cake for his birthday, which was coming up. (He is a huge fan of Diet Coke and Coke Zero!)

So, I set out on a quest to find a recipe. Ultimately, I found it in the place I should have looked to start with - the Coca Cola website! They actually have a great section of recipes using their products.

I decided I was not about to make a brand-new kind of cake for a party without testing it out first. Since we were going to out of town to see some friends, I decided to make one and take it with us.

Cola Cake
from Coca-Cola Recipes

Ingredients
For cake:
2 c. sugar
2 c. all-purpose flour
1 1/2 c. small marshmallows
1/2 c. butter or margarine
1/2 c. vegetable oil
3 T cocoa
1 c. Coca-Cola
1 t. baking soda
1/2 c. buttermilk
2 eggs
1 t. vanilla extract

For Frosting:
1/2 c. butter
3 T. cocoa
6 T Coca-Cola
1 box (16 ounces) confectioners' sugar (note: this is 4 cups)
1 t. vanilla extract
1 c. chopped pecans

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a bowl, sift sugar and flour. Add marshmallows.

In saucepan, mix butter, oil, cocoa and Coca-Cola. Bring to a boil and pour over dry ingredients; blend well.

Dissolve baking soda in buttermilk just before adding to batter along with eggs and vanilla extract, mixing well.

Pour into a well-greased 9 x 13-inch pan and bake 35-45 minutes. Remove from oven and frost immediately.

To make frosting, combine butter, cocoa and Coca-Cola in a saucepan. Bring to a boil and pour over confectioners' sugar, blending well. Add vanilla extract and pecans. Spread over hot cake. When cool, cut into squares and serve.

The Verdict
One thing I read on the AllRecipes website while I was looking for the recipe was that this cake is very sticky, and it does best baked in the 9 x 13 pan and served from there. I really wanted it to look like a real birthday cake, though, and use my new cake-decorating skills to decorate it. So, I came up with the idea of using a springform pan. For good measure, I lined the pan with parchment paper, which I "glued" to the sides of the pan with cooking spray. I wanted to spray it with Baker's Joy, but my canister was all clogged up so I skipped that on the test cake & hoped for the best, but it worked fine. The cake was a little lopsided on top, but it still looked okay.

I only used 3/4 c. of pecans, because that's how the brand I like to buy is sold, and I had a coupon for buy one, get one free of that size. But, it was more than plenty!

I didn't take any pictures of this version, but I will have some to share in the post about my husband's party!