Recently the hubby and I ventured to the coast of Connecticut with his parents and his sister and her husband to visit his Grandmother, Uncle, and extended family. We had a really nice time relaxing and vegging out, but had to do some celebrating because it was my hubby's 30th birthday! We stayed in an old beach cottage that has been in the family since it was built back in the 50's, and had slim pickin's when it came to cooking tools. Sooo, we got creative and made what turned out to be a pretty impressive cake! It was SO easy (I am pretty sure an 8 year old could do it...). The best part is that you do not have to have ANY cake decorating supplies to do it.
12 Layer Cake
- Disposable 8.5" round foil pans (**see note below**)
- 2 boxes Yellow Cake Mix & ingredients to make mix
- 1 large package vanilla instant pudding
- 1/2 c Buttermilk
-1 1/2 Sticks Butter or Margarine
- 4 heaping Tbsp cocoa
- ~1 1/2 lbs powdered sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla
- Chocolate Icing (I actually used CANNED icing... 2 cans!)
** We only bought 6 pans and resused them... all we could find were pie tins, and we made do. However, if you can find foil tins with sides that are completely vertical, you will have cleaner edges. If you don't want to resuse the tins, just buy 12. They are cheap anyway!
1. Spray foil tins with PAM or grease with butter. Set aside.
2. Prepare 1 box of cake mix according to the directions on the box. Add 1/2 package of instant pudding powder.
3. Pour about 2/3 c batter in each foil tin. 1 box of cake mix should fill 6 pans.
4. Spread batter out as evenly as possible. I found that if I just banged the pan on the counter top over and over, it spread out nicely.
5. Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 11 minutes or until golden brown. I was able to bake 6 at a time, 3 on each rack. They baked fairly evenly, but you may need to just do 3 at a time if your oven doesn't bake evenly. When finished, allow cakes (that actually look like pancakes!) to cook on wax paper.
6. Repeat steps 1-5 with second box of cake mix. If you are reusing pans, there is no need to clean them out. Simply re-grease thoroughly.
7. Now it is time to prepare the filling. Melt butter in a saucepan over low heat.
8. Add cocoa. Then stir in milk. Finally, stir in vanilla.
9. Add 1 lb of powdered sugar and stir until most of the clumps are gone. Add more sugar until the mixture is about the consistency of chocolate syrup. (We added about 1/4 lb)
10. Now the fun part!! On a wire rack (we didn't have one, so we just used the serving platter, but it required lots of wiping up chocolate... so I thought I would make it easier on you!) place one layer of cake.
11. Spoon chocolate sauce on top of cake so that it completely coveres the top. It is ok if it drips over the edge! Then place another layer of cake, and repeat with more icing. Continue with all layers of cake. (We ran out of chocolate sauce and did not have ingredients to make more, so we ended up only using 9 layers. So... you may need to make more chocolate sauce...!) Top with the remaing chocolate sauce.
12. With a knife or cake spatula, spread the dripping sauce around the sides of the cake to cover as much as you can. It's ok if it looks messy... you are going to cover it with more icing!! Allow to sit for 15min or so to let sauce thicken and set.
13. Cover cake with chocolate buttercream icing. As I mentioned before, we just used Betty Crocker icing from the grocery store because we did not have an electric mixer to make our own icing. If you want to make your own, one recipe should work. Homemade chocolate buttercream is pretty amazing....
You are done!! You can always decorate the cake if you want, but people will be impressed enough when they cut it open... We used a can of decorating frosting that had a few tips with it so the birthday boy would feel like it was a real birthday cake... :-)
Enjoy!
