Wilmington Island Marsh Mud Cake

recipe from Pauladeen.com

This is my first recipe ever from Paula Deen. I love Paula! I have her baking/cooking products and have no idea why it took me this long to try one of her recipes. 

This cake is delish!!! Rich and decadent and definitely party worthy.

Cake:

Ingredients:

1/2 cup cocoa

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, melted

4 eggs, beaten

1 1/2 half cups all purpose flour

2 cups granulated sugar

1/8 tsp. salt

1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups chopped pecans

Frosting:

Ingredients:

1, 16 oz box light brown sugar

1/3 cup cocoa

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, softened

1/2 cup milk

1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

1, 10.5 oz package miniature marshmallows

Preheat oven to 350

Grease 9 x 13 x 2 inch pan

Stir cocoa in mixing bowl with butter. Add eggs, flour, sugar, salt and vanilla.  Beat well with mixer. Fold in nuts. Pour into prepared pan and bake for 35 minutes.

While cake is baking, prepare frosting.

Scald the milk. 

How to scald milk:

1. In a heavy bottomed sauce pan, add milk and heat on medium-low.

2. Stir frequently to ensure milk doesn't thicken and burn on bottom of pan.

3. Keep heating the milk until it starts to steam and small bubbles start to form around the edges of the pan.

 *It's important not to boil the milk!

Beat the brown sugar and butter together. Add cocoa, milk and vanilla. Beat until smooth. 

Remove cake from oven when done and pour marshmallows over the hot cake.

Pour frosting over marshmallows on top.

Do you wonder why the cake looks like someone took a bite out of it? Well, someone did. His name is John and he is lucky he is cute!

NOTE: Both the cake and the frosting are "gritty". Great texture and it should be, after all it's a mud cake...

Also I will make one change the next time I make this. We didn't care for the massive amount of marshmallows used for the topping. Instead of using a full 10.5 oz bag, I will just cover the top completely with one layer.