Favorite recipes tend to come from family traditions. Grandma’s casserole only brought out at Christmas or the dessert saved for the 4th of July. The most requested recipes in my household tend to be the most time-consuming. My mom’s sweet & sour chicken and my best friend, Olivia’s, famous Hershey Bar Cake.
Olivia is from the Outer Banks of North Carolina. We met as luck-of-the-draw roommates over 20 years ago at Evangel University. We married cousins to seal the deal and make our friendship permanent. One of the BEST things she brought from her Mother Land to the Ozarks is Hershey Bar Cake.
It is SO STINKING GOOD. She now has 7 kids and not much time to bake her famous cake at our request… so I am stepping up! I’ve made it a time or two before, but last night I decided to make it for our church small group and there wasn’t a crumb left at the end of the night. Trust me, you’ll want to save this recipe for a special occasion.
Olivia’s Hershey Bar Cake
Chocolate Cake (From the back of the Hershey Cocoa Powder can)
2 cups white sugar
1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1 cup milk
½ cup vegetable oil (I used butter)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract 1 cup boiling water
Bake at 350 for 30 minutes (This recipe made enough to fill 2 round cake pans)
Icing
1 (12 ounce) container Cool Whip
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese
1 cup powdered sugar
4 Hershey chocolate bars with almonds, chopped (same some for top of cake)
Mix Cool Whip, cream cheese, and powdered sugar. Add chopped Hershey bar, save a little back for the top of the cake.
Cool the cakes completely. On top of first layer, spread half the icing. Stack second layer and finish spreading the rest of the icing. Add Hershey on top.
The star of the show is the icing, so you could probably use any old cake recipe. I promise, it is worth the time commitment to make this cake.