Better than crack, I mean… hoho, cake.

This is a Hoho.

 For those of you who do not know, know,

There is nothing quite as amazing as a ho ho.

Except….See, they’re creme filled, and real cream filling takes dairy.  Like a lot of organic lipids suspended in water, milk is pretty delicate, chemically speaking.   The filling has to be made from raw or semi-raw (pasteurized) milk, because the heating process of making milk truly shelf stable (ultra-pasteurization) breaks the lipids down to far for them to cream properly.  

The answer is to replace the milk fats with petrochemical based lipid substitutes like PEG80.  PEG stands for Polyethylene glycol.  The number after refers to the length of the polymer.  PEG is pretty safe and its used in all sorts of things, meant to go in the body (laxatives) on the body (skin creams) and both in and on (sexual lubricants).     PEG has many interesting properties, but in commercial cookery it contributes two things: taste and mouth feel.  It has no taste. (A note to adventurous readers: The taste of sexual lubricant is caused by the glycerin and perfumes, not the the PEG.)  It also, in comparison to real fat, has a really weird mouth feel, because the melting point is often above 98.6 degrees.  This is why twinkies and hohos leave that sort of funky coating in your mouth.

 Well, for my birthday, (28, and yes I had a great time) my wife made me HoHo cake.  Not the stack of Hostess Hohos in a cake shape that other have tried, this is the real deal.

 

Ho-Ho Cake

 

Cake

1 stick butter

½ C oil

2 C flour

2 C sugar

1 t baking soda

1 C water

3 T cocoa

1 egg

½ C milk

 

Filling

1 C sugar

1 C shortening

½ C milk

1 T water

¼ t salt

1 t vanilla

1 C powdered sugar

 

Frosting

1 C sugar

6 T milk

6 T butter

1 ½ C chocolate chips

 

1. Cake: Combine butter, oil, flour, sugar, baking soda, water, and cocoa. Beat well.

2. Add egg and milk. Beat well.

3. Pour into greased 15 x 10 x 1-inch jelly roll pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Cool.

4. Filling: mix together sugar, shortening, milk, water, salt, and vanilla.

5. Add powdered sugar while beating. Spread over cooled cake.

6. Frosting: boil sugar, milk, and butter for 1 minute.

7. Add the chocolate chips. Beat and then pour over cake. Cool.

 

 Now, I must warn you.  Lacking the PEG, this does not, in fact,  taste “just like” Ho Hos.  If you like the MSG/PEG sort of after taste in other foods (like Cool Ranch Doritos for instance) , you are going to find this merely passable cake.  However, if you like real taste, this is absolutely amazing.  Which brings me to my second warning.  It eats like crack smokes.  Make for a large group, or accept the fact you are going to eat an even pound butter/shortening ect. and 4 cups of sugar in a 24 hour period.  Did I mention it’s absolutely amazing?  

 

Better than crack, I mean hoho, cake.