Ho Ho Cake - Cake Odyssey Bonus

Happy Birthday Evan!  It's hard to believe it's been 11 years since I first became a mother.  Those eleven years have been filled with some of the highest highs and lowest lows of my life.  Thankfully, there have been WAY more highs than lows.  Parenting is a tough business to engage in.  Talk about on-the-job training.  Nothing can prepare you for it but I don't regret a single step I've taken down this wonderfully, crazy road.

We celebrated Evan's birthday with extended family a couple of weeks ago.  Kevin's golf trip last week and Evan and Jenna's approaching camp stays made it impossible to have a big shin-dig on his actual birthday or even on the weekend of his birthday.  When I asked Evan what cake he wanted me to bake for him, there was no hesitation.  Ho Ho Cake was the answered I heard, loud and clear.  Perhaps the days of him asking me for a "themed" birthday cake are past now.  Goodness knows, I have labored over my share of cakes shaped like everything from a pirate ship to the Scooby Doo Mystery Machine to Rolie Polie Olie and beyond!  Ho Ho Cake is a perfect special occasion cake.

Beware, this is not for anyone who might be watching their caloric intake.  And I will tell you this much... Ho Ho Cake is so sinfully delicious that it is enough to make a person who follows a vegan diet to "fall off the wagon!"  We have a neighbor that began to practice a vegan diet a few years ago, but not before he'd already enjoyed a little slice of Ho Ho Cake heaven several Memorial Day cookouts ago.  Once a year, we deliver a slice of Ho Ho Cake to Mark and he sits down to enjoy what truly is a culinary drug.

In this post, I will show you how to turn this:

Into this:

Ho Ho Cake
Here's What You Need:
1 devil's food cake mix
1 small package instant vanilla pudding
8 ounces cream cheese
1/2 cup butter
1 pound powdered sugar
8 ounces Cool Whip
1 container chocolate frosting

Here's What You Do:
Bake the cake according to the box, along with the pudding mix.  Be sure to use two round cake pans.  Allow the layers to cool about 10 minutes after they come out of the oven.  Next, invert on a cooling rack and remove the layers from the pan.  Allow to cool completely.  Once the layers are cooled, use a long serrated knife to split each layer in half, horizontally.  Now you have four, thin cake layers.

Mix the cream cheese, butter and powdered sugar.  Once you have it nice and smooth, fold in the Cool Whip.  Place one cake layer on your cake plate.  Spread lots of the  cream cheese mixture on the layer to within an inch of the edge of the cake.

Repeat this process until you are left with the final cake layer on top.  You will have quite a bit of the cream cheese mixture leftover.  I like to use this to decorate the top of the cake or I find something else yummy to use it on.  It will keep in the fridge for a week or so.

Now, spread the top and sides of the cake with the chocolate frosting.

Full Disclosure:   I generally use two containers of chocolate frosting.  I don't use all of the second one, but let's be honest, one just isn't enough for a cake this size.  I tried the first time I ever made this cake and was so grateful that I had a spare container of frosting in the cupboard.  You know.  For emergencies such as these!

Be sure to refrigerate this cake.  It's meant to be cold.  No, I've never taken any formal cake decorating classes.  I know it's hard to believe with as fancy as this cake turned out.  Truthfully, I had people walking in the door while I was squirting out the words on the top of this cake.  Guess where I had been all day?  If you answered, BASEBALL FIELDS, you are right!

And then there was the candle incident.  I realized I didn't have eleven candles.  I had 9 regular cake candles and then one really long one.  I told Evan he had to stay 10 years old because that's all the candles I had.  And then Evan simply and matter-of-factly says, "Just cut the long one in half, Mom."  Duh, guess I'm not smarter than a 5th grader after all!