Utter Randomness: Halloween Candy Cake

For the record, I am not a baker.  But every once and awhile I get inspired to test my ability at following directions and go for it.  Last night, I finally got annoyed with the remains of my Halloween candy bowl and was determined to find a use for them.  You'd have thought I bought icky candy from the amount of people that have bypassed the remaining 15 bite-sized candies that were strategically placed on the bar.  And so, with 10 Milky Way bars and 5-3 Muskateers, I went on a recipe search mission.

My search left me panting over The Pioneer Woman's photos of her delicious Milky Way Cake from her aunt's recipe collection.  The recipe was pretty simple and best of all didn't require 2 uneven round cakes and another lopsided frosting debacle.  (I'm having flashbacks to this past Christmas' layer cake. No photos available.)

As much as I love the recipe, I had to make some budget-friendly adjustments.

Recipe Tips

• Since I didn't have buttermilk or 8 additional full size Milky Way bars, I used Ghiradelli's Grand Fudge Cake recipe because Ghiradelli cocoa is one of my personal pantry essentials.
• Unlike the recipe, I used a greased 11x13 glass pan and it worked perfectly.
• I didn't quite have 2 cups of powdered sugar.  That's a failure on my part for not looking at the sugar but using my mental kitchen instead.  To account for that, I only used a tablespoon of sugar and added a big scoop of hot fudge topping to make sure it was sweet enough.
• I substituted regular milk for almond milk just to see how it would turn out.  (Yes, it's almond milk from my Whole Foods Market pantry essentials!)
• Since I didn't have the oooey gooey cake recipe, I poked holes in the cake before pouring the warm icing on top to get the sticky goodness all through the cake. 

Halloween Candy Cake 

Grand Fudge Cake

3/4 cups Unsweetened Cocoa

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 3/4 cups sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup butter, softened

1 1/3 cups almond milk

2 large eggs

2 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350ºF. Grease an 11x13 glass pan.  In a medium bowl, combine flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt, and set aside. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes. Reduce speed to low, and add vanilla and eggs one at a time, scraping bowl after each addition. Alternately add flour mixture and milk (starting and ending with the flour mixture), while mixing on low speed. Continue to mix until smooth. Pour into prepared pan. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until a cake tester inserted in the center of cake comes out clean.

Credit:  Adapted from Ghiradelli Grand Fudge Cake recipe

Icing

10 bite-size Milky Way bars

5 bite-size 3 Muskateers bars

1/2 cup butter

1 cup powdered sugar

1 tbsp hot fudge topping

dash salt

1 tbsp almond milk (more if needed)

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup finely chopped pecans

To make the icing, melt the candy bars with butter  (in a double boiler or in a saucepan over very low heat). Add remaining ingredients and stir over low heat. Add more milk if needed.

Pour over the cooled cake and allow to set. Cake will be very sticky! Don’t expect neat, perfect slices.

Credit: Adapted from Tasty Kitchen Milky Way Cake recipe

Pouring the icing on this cake was just plain sexy.

The icing created yummy gooeyness throughout the cake.

The perfect bite