Chocolate Picnic Cake

Summer is always billed as a slow, relaxing season. Anyone who stays home with little kids all day knows otherwise. A mom's summer days are filled with entertaining bored kids, finding lost flip flops, chauffeuring littles ones to VBS, parks, pools, and playdates; and generally trying to hold onto her sanity.

That's why I like to rely on simple, tried-and-true recipes for those days that I'm just too worn out to cook something from scratch for the 15th neighborhood barbecue of the week. My recipe for Chocolate Picnic Cake fits the bill...it's one of the easiest recipes I've tried and it satisfies the chocaholic chocolate lover in me.

Chocolate Picnic Cake
from Southern Living Cooking School, 2004

Cake Ingredients:

1 box dark chocolate fudge cake mix
1 cup mayonnaisse (sorry, no Miracle Whip!)
1 cup water
3 large eggs
1 tsp. ground cinnamon (optional, but I highly recommend it)
Cola Frosting (recipe below)

1. Grease and flour a 13 x 9 baking pan. Beat the first 4 ingredients (and the cinnamon, if desired) at low speed with an electric mixer 40 to 45 seconds or until combined. Beat at medium speed 2 minutes or until smooth, stopping to scrape down the sides. Pour batter into prepared baking pan.

2. Bake at 350 degrees F for 30 minutes (35 if you use a glass baking dish), or until a wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes. Spread Cola frosting over warm cake.

Cola Frosting
1/2 cup butter or margarine
6 T Cola soft drink (do not substitute diet cola!)
3 T unsweetened cocoa
1 (16 oz.) pkg. powdered sugar
1 t. vanilla extract

Bring first 3 ingredients to a boil in a saucepan over medium  heat, stirring until butter melts. Remove from heat. Stir in sugar and vanilla until smooth.

Note: I got distracted by the rumble over the Barbies in the other room and accidentally used two sticks of butter, as you can see from the photos. I was able to fix my mistake by toying with the recipe, but don't follow in my footsteps. My icing isn't as smooth as can be (you can see that the powdered sugar didn't dissolve all the way), but when you have two small helpers in the kitchen, perfection isn't always an option!

This is an all-around picnic crowd pleaser, even if it contains a few unconventional ingredients! My husband, whose picky eating habits are famous, devoured a piece or three after getting over the idea of adding mayo to a cake mix.

Linking to Centsational Girl for the BBQ and Picnic Ideas party.

Join me tomorrow for Session #1 in my new Blogging Myths series for bloggers!