Mississippi Mud Cake

This morning, I made a Mississippi Mud Cake.  When I was a child in the 70's, this dessert was one of my favorites.  Now, as an adult, just reading the recipe makes my arteries clog a little.  The cake itself has a cup of oil, the cake is spread with marshmallow fluff, and the icing has 2 sticks of butter, sweetened condensed milk, pecans . . . oh, all right, I'll post the recipe below.

Why am I making such a thing?  Well at lunch time tomorrow, there's a multi-cultural cook off.  We're supposed to bring foods of our homelands. 

I'm a woman who has no homeland.

Yes that's a melodramatic statement, and not exactly true.  But it came to me, and I loved the rhythm of it, so I'll write it here, on this blog, where I write all sorts of lines that may or may not migrate to poems.

But seriously, when I think of my homeland (the U.S. South, above the Florida border, let us say), I think of certain foods, but they weren't foods that appeared on the tables of my childhood and adolescence.  When we wanted fried chicken, we went to KFC, just like the rest of the country.  We ate grits at restaurants, but not at home.  At home we ate tuna noodle casserole and tacos from a kit that we got at the grocery store (shells and a packet of seasoning to add to the meat).  We had the occasional pot roast, with lots of potatoes and carrots to stretch out the meal.  We had soupy sloppy joes.  We had all sorts of miscellaneous stews that came out of a crock pot.

None of those dishes exactly screams "Modern Crowd Pleaser."  I'm not sure that this Mississippi Mud Cake will please everyone.  You won't like this cake if you're the kind of person who wrinkles your nose and says, "My, it's awfully sweet, isn't it?"

When we were kids, we ate second servings.  Now, I can only eat a smidge.  But what a tasty, gooey smidge!

Tomorrow at work we will have the noon cook off at work and our department no-pressure potluck in the late afternoon.  I wonder if I can get an extra work out in?

So, if you want a taste of tomorrow (or a taste of yesterday, a childhood in the 70's), here's the recipe:

Mississippi Mud Cake

2 C. sugar
1 C. oil
1/3 C. cocoa
1 1/2 C. flour
4 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 C. pecans

Mix all the ingredients together and put in a 9 x 13 inch pan.  Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.  Remove from oven and let sit for 10 minutes.  Spread with one jar of marshmallow creme.

Frosting:  Melt together the following:

2 sticks butter
1 pound powdered sugar
1/2 C. cocoa
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 C. condensed milk
1 C. pecans.

Spread over the marshmallow creme.  Ideally, the creme spreads into the frosting and looks mud-like. 

This cake is even better if you can make it one day ahead of time.