Coca Cola Cake ~Oh So Good!~
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If you’re familiar with Coca Cola cake, just seeing the title had you scrolling down to make sure you had the ingredients to make it today. If you’re not familiar with Coca Cola cake, allow me to offer a brief introduction (because you need to hurry up and make this cake!).
We love our Coca Cola. After all, Coke is a southern product! It was invented in Atlanta, just a few hours from where I live, and the extremely large World Of Coke museum is located in downtown Atlanta today.
If you’ve never been to Atlanta, you simply must put World Of Coke on your list of things to see should you ever get to visit. My kids love it so much that I can’t even tell you how often we have been. With in-laws living just outside of Atlanta, every time we go to visit I hear “Are we going to the Coke Museum?”
They especially love the tasting room where you can drink all the different beverages Coke makes around the world. Some of them are amazingly delicious – and some are downright strange – but all of them are fun to try!
The museum also hosts an interactive movie theater, complete with 3-d, smell-o-vision, vibrating seats, and even special effects like water sprays and such (all minor). There are coke relics from around the world and several floors of interesting and interactive exhibits. Kids love this place!
Oh, back to my cake….Coca Cola does wonderful things to baked goods. The sugar in it caramelizes, the carbonation tenderizes, the flavor is so amazing that it enhances everything. I have a few Coke recipes up my sleeve to share with you but we shall start with this wondrous cake!
Oh, and yes, in the south, if it is a carbonated beverage, it is a “Coke”. No one ever says “soda” or “pop”. All carbonated beverages are “cokes”.
“You want a coke?”
“Sure!”
“What kind?”
“Dr. Pepper”
That is generally how it goes. We really do love our Coke!
Alrighty then, on to our cake! Did you know that Coca Cola cake is so popular in the south that our beloved Cracker Barrel Restaurants even have it on their menu as a seasonal special? Yup, see how much you learn with me? You N’ me, we’z smart folks!
Ingredients
- 1 package plain white cake mix
- 4 Tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
- 8 Tablespoons 1 stick butter or margarine, melted
- 1 cup coca cola
- ½ cup buttermilk Or substitute 1/2 C whole milk with a T of lemon juice stirred in
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 ½ cups of marshmallows
- Icing:
- 8 Tablespoons 1 stick butter or margarine
- 4 Tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1/3 Cup coca cola
- 4 Cups confectioners’ sugar sifted
- 1 Cup chopped pecans I left these out because my kids prefer this cake with no nuts, but pecans are GREAT in this!
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly mist a 13x9-inch baking pan with vegetable oil spray. Set the pan aside.
- Place the cake mix, cocoa powder, melted butter, cola, buttermilk, eggs, and vanilla in a large mixing bowl. Blend with an electric mixer on low speed for 1 minute. Scrape down the sides with a spatula. Increase the mixer speed to medium and beat 2 minutes.
- The batter should be well blended. Fold in the marshmallows. Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Place the pan it the oven.
- Bake the cake until it springs back when lightly pressed with your finger and just starts to pull away from the sides of the pan, 40 to 42 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven, prepare frosting while cake is still hot.
- Place the butter in a medium saucepan over low heat. As the butter melts, stir in the cocoa powder and cola. Let the mixture come to just a boil, stirring constantly, and then remove it from the heat. Stir in the confectioners’ sugar until the frosting is thick and smooth. Fold in the pecans.
- Pour the frosting over the top of the cake, spreading it out with a rubber spatula so that it reaches the edges of the cake. Cool the cake for 20 minutes before serving.
Nutrition
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You might also enjoy this recipe! Pineapple Poke Cake
YUMM! I’ve had Coca Cola cake at Cracker Barrel and loved it. It is only available at Christmas. Now I can have it anytime 🙂 Thanks for the recipe!
be still my beating heart. Dr. Pepper?!?!?!?! I practically bleed that stuff (I’m awful) and I never thought of using that in a coca cola cake.
This cracked me up:
“You want a coke?”
“Sure!”
“What kind?”
“Dr. Pepper” That was one of the hardest things to get used to after moving to Alabama, if you can believe it. I still call them sodas some but coke what I usually refer to all soft drinks as- I guess the 13 years I’ve been here have gotten to me. 😉
Hi! Found your recipe after googling “coca cola cake” when I heard about it from Faith Hill on “The View” today. Laughed so much at your comments I’ve given myself an asthma attack! Loved every one of your pictures and comments. Now I am dashing out to buy the ingrediants. Dont think I can actually get “white” cake mix here in NZ but will try madeira. Can’t wait, my boys are gonna love this! thanks!
Sounds absolutely fantastic. I’ll try this one and stop by to give a reaction!
Hilarious post, you had me laughing out loud with the chocolate-camera!
One question, I’m in Europe (Holland) and white cake mix is hard to come by (I have to drive 2 hours to a specialty import store). Any plain ingredient substitution suggestions for the cake mix? (I’m okay on the marshmellows, they sell the real american ones in every supermarket here now!).
Love your site and your recipes! Thanks so much for your blog!
Looks great!
We were on our way home from Florida last week and stopped for lunch at Cracker Barrel in Mississippi where we all shared a piece of their Coca Cola Cake (since it was my daughters’ birthday). Wow! I talked about that cake the rest of the way home! My husband said “enough already about the cake!”. Thanks so much for printing the recipe. Can’t wait to try it!
Have not made the cake yet but had to say “hilarious bigtime” can’t wait to read another.
Hey Debra! My mom said she went to visit an aunt in Wisconsin as a child and asked for a coke, she got blank stares. Her aunt stepped up and saved the day by translating “She wants a pop”. Mama was clueless as to what that was!