Coca Cola Cake

Cake:
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups mini-marshmallows
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup oil
3 Tbsp cocoa
1 cup Coca-Cola (not diet)
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract

Frosting:
1/2 cup butter
3 Tbsp cocoa
6 Tbsp Coca-Cola
3 to 4 cups confectioners' sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup chopped pecans (optional)


DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a bowl, sift sugar and flour. Add marshmallows.

In saucepan, mix butter, oil, cocoa, and Coca-Cola. Bring to a boil and pour over dry ingredients; blend well.

Dissolve baking soda in buttermilk just before adding to batter along with eggs and vanilla extract, mixing well.

Pour into a well-greased 9-by-13-inch pan and bake 35 to 45 minutes. Remove from oven and frost immediately.

To make frosting, combine butter, cocoa and Coca-Cola in a saucepan. Bring to a boil and pour over confectioners' sugar, blending well. Add vanilla extract and pecans. Spread over hot cake. When cool, cut into squares and serve.


Variation: Use Cherry Coke instead of regular coke. I used maraschino cherries with stems on dipped in chocolate to garnish (a 9x13 pan makes 24 pieces (depending on how big or small you want to make the pieces) or 24 cupcakes (if you don't want a cake). Whatever cherries are left after you pick out 24 for dipping in chocolate, chop them up and mix them into the batter just before you pour it into the pan. Because the cherries are so sweet, I cut back on the sugar (used about 1 cup instead of 1 1/2). Also, I wanted to bring out the vanilla flavour (I used cherry vanilla coke), so I used whipped vanilla icing. It also played up on the contrast of the chocolate dipped cherries.