Hershey® Bar Cake, made from Hershey® bars and Hershey’s® Syrup has been a mainstay of my family since I received the recipe from a high school friend in El Dorado, Arkansas.  Since then, the sometimes finicky recipe has yielded a moist, dense, deep chocolate cake (well, most of the time) that has been the star of many after-dinner desserts and birthday celebrations for more than 50 or so years.

I say finicky because sometimes the cake bakes beautifully, sometimes it doesn’t.  It may be the weather.  It may be the oven.  It just may be me.  But if you can get this cake to turn out the way we like it — slightly undercooked yet not gooey, firm enough to cut with a fork — then you’ve got a treat that almost anyone will love.  At home, we serve it with good quality vanilla ice cream topped with rich, warm chocolate sauce.

The recipe is so old that it originally called for two 20-cent cans of syrup (not available now) and seven nickel candy bars!!! I’ve made some substitutions and included them in the full recipe below.

Basic steps: 

Cream butter & sugar. Add eggs one at a time, beating after each addition.

Add 1 can Hershey Syrup.

Add flour mixture alternatively with buttermilk. Then add vanilla.

Add 5 melted Hershey bars.

Bake at 325 degrees for about 1 hour and 10-20 minutes.

Hershey® Bar Cake

2 sticks butter (1 cup)

2 cups granulated sugar

4 eggs, at room temperature

1 can Hershey® Syrup

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup buttermilk

5 Hershey® bars (1.55 ounces each)

Preheat oven to 350°.  Let 2 sticks of butter and eggs come to room temperature.  Grease and flour 10″ tube pan.

Cream butter and sugar.  Add eggs one at a time, mixing after each addition.  Add syrup.  Sift dry ingredients.  Add to mixture alternatively with buttermilk.  Add vanilla. Melt Hershey© bars in microwavable measuring cup and add to mixture.

Bake at 325º for 1 hour and approximately 10 – 20 minutes more.  Test for doneness but do not let dry out completely.  You want this to be moist.  (I use a knife and look for it to come out with a little gooeyness clinging to it!)

For the bake sale at Holiday Helpings, we sold halves of the cake wrapped in plastic wrap and tied with burlap ribbon.  The tags were printed on cardstock and glued to scrapbooking paper.

Hope you enjoy making this cake.  Let us know if it works for you!  But even if it doesn’t, pull it out before it’s almost done and just eat it with a spoon.  Mmmm!

This post is #14 for National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo) 2013.

It’s called Holiday Helpings at First United Methodist Church in Knoxville, TN, and many ladies (and men, too) of the church work hours, days, weeks, and months in advance to ensure its success.  It works this way:  You place an order for soups, casseroles, rolls and sticky buns that are made and frozen in advance.  Then, the day of the sale, you pick up your order and maybe some homemade baked goods that are laid out temptingly in the multi-purpose room of the church.  This year we decided to order several items AND contribute to the Bake Sale.

In this post and our next one, we’re sharing what we cooked, wrapped, and tagged for this year’s FUMC Holiday Helpings. For all our contributions, the tags (which we think help the goods sell faster) were printed on cardstock and glued to leftover scrapbooking paper.  Tags were tied on with ribbon or twine.

First, Bert made his fabulous Slightly Spicy Munchies using the recipe on the side of the Wheat Chex® box and adding a little Slap Ya Mama seasoning, dry roasted peanuts, and cheese crackers. Easy to make.  Always sell well.

We both took turns stirring and baking these Sugared Peanuts, a recipe passed down from Bert’s mom.  (See below.)  Of course, we would have had more of these for the sale, but you know how you just hafta sample what you’re sharing!!! (These make great stocking stuffers, too!)

We tried Hello Dolly Bars from a recipe found at www.myrecipes.com that we stumbled upon when searching the Southern Living website.  Click here for this easy-to-layer bar cookie that never fails!

Another recipe in the collection of 10 Best-Ever Bar Cookies and Brownies found at the Southern Living website (www.southernliving.com) was this one for Peach Melba Shortbread Bars. Click here for the easy recipe that looks as pretty as it tastes. A feminine blue and cream printed scrapbooking paper made the tags look almost delicate.

We tried a new recipe this year for Poppy Seed Cake (Click here), a moist cake that freezes well.  The recipe comes from my friend Joy McCabe who appears on WBIR cooking up great things for tailgates, brunches, and home entertaining. You’ll love her website: http://www.joymccabe.com

And those are some of our contributions to Holiday Helpings this year. We’d love to know what you make for bake sales because we’re always looking for new ideas!

Sugared Peanuts

1 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup water

2 cups raw shelled peanuts, skins on

Dissolve sugar in water in saucepan over medium heat.  Add peanuts and continue to cook over medium heat, stirring frequently.  Cook until peanuts are completely sugared (coated, no syrup).  But be careful:  Don’t let the mixture turn back to sugar.

Pour and spread onto ungreased cookie sheet and bake at 300 degrees for approximately 30 minutes, stirring at 10 minute intervals.

This post is #13 for National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo) 2013.