Thursday, September 4, 2008

frances cake, take nine: the more caffeine! edition

a little while ago, emdawg went to tennessee for work and came home with stirring tales of the coca-cola cake she had eaten there. think such a thing is too good to be true? think again!

as sunday was rainy and cold and there was no work the next day, we determined to make this mythical dessert on our own. a recipe was surprisingly easy to come by; in fact, there were several to choose from. i went with the one from southernfood.about.com, because that seemed like a pretty reliable source for something like coca-cola cake. also, the recipe called for melted marshmellows to be added to the cake batter, which was intriguing and ultimately oh-so-tasty.

the only catch was, thanks to the storm, there was no power at my house. so we made the cake at em's instead.

for something as high-falutin' as coca-cola cake, the process was pretty simple. we did have to melt some of the ingredients in a saucepan, which i guess could have been tricky. and we had to make our own buttermilk. not quite as impressive as the time i had to make my own mayonnaise (true story. and it wasn't even disgusting), but worth something i guess.

the best part was watching all the other ingredients fizz when we added the magical coke itself.





(sidenote: my mom has a friend who has trained her kids to call coke "the brown juice" so she's not embarassed when they ask for it in public. i think of that every time i think about coke, which is pretty often, and it always makes me laugh.)

em and i have been friends for a while now, so there wasn't a whole lot of "getting to know you" to be done. i already know, for example, that em loves robots, the number five and pizza with pineapple. she also loves all things electronic, and is currently having a torrid affair with her iphone. she loves great music and live concerts and she doesn't like to sit with her back to doors or windows in public places because she grew up in the ghetto, and the ghetto will make you afraid of things like doors and windows.

i did manage to learn a few new things about emily while the cake baked, but she asked me not to include any of them in this post, in case she decides to run for public office some day.

we baked the cake to absolute perfection.



and then it was time to make the frosting! which was guaranteed to be delicious because it included large amounts of powdered sugar, butter and... coke!





in addition to the creation of a dessert that includes everyone's favorite beverage, the night was red-letter since it was only the second time em had worn her new "high five" shirt. em likes to refer to pretty much all social interactions as "high fives." she also really likes it if you come up to her and high five her shirt. so try that next time you see her.



the final product was everything we could have hoped for and more. it even took the edge off the hurricane gustav coverage we were watching.



and yes, i realize i look slightly insane in this picture. but you've just got to realize, coca-cola cake can do that to a girl.

3 comments:

Em said...

Not going to lie, this makes us look real fun.

And people, if you hi-five my shirt, we'll both have to go to the bishop....so, let's avoid that.

Devin said...

looks like fun. i do hope you saved some of that cake for us to eat after our jumping-out-of-an-airplane extravaganza.

Joel said...

Coca-Cola chocolate chip cookies. Growing up my friends sister used to make them. There great.