More Peeps Stuff!

I saw this last Easter in a Taste of Home Magazine and bought all the necessary ingredients to make it. Well, it never got made in 2008. So this year I bought the ingredients again (Peeps) determined to complete the task… and I did! It was really cool! The cake was a box mix, but doctored. The frosting however, was Hershey’s “Perfectly Chocolate” Chocolate Frosting.

Cake Ingredients:

• 1 Box Duncan Hines Butter Recipe Golden Cake
• 4 large eggs
• 1 pack vanilla instant pudding mix (4 serving size)
• 1 cup water
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 18 – 20 Yellow Peeps Chicks*
• Semi-sweet chocolate chips, regular and mini

Cake Directions:

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease two 9″ round cake pans, though I used three 8″ pans for a taller cake.

Combine all of the ingredients and mix for 2 minutes, or until smooth. Divide into pans and bake for 20-25 minutes (or until it’s done). Remove, cool layers in the pans for 10 minutes, then remove to cooling rack.

Hershey’s “Perfectly Chocolate” Chocolate Frosting

Ingredients:

• 1 stick butter, melted (1/2 cup)
• 2/3 cup Hershey’s Cocoa
• 3 cups powdered sugar
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1 tsp vanilla

Directions:

Melt butter. Stir in cocoa. Alternately add powdered sugar and milk, beating to spreading consistency. Add small amount additional milk, if needed. Stir in vanilla. About 2 cups frosting.

 Sunflower Peeps Cake:

Prepare cake and frost. Place Peeps Chicks around the border of the frosted cake (face in). Using regular size chocolate chips, form rings in the center of the cake. For the last few rings, use miniature chocolate chips. *The Taste of Home recipe says not to separate the chicks… but I found they wanted to keep “bouncing back” to shape…so i ended up separating them.