Mud Cakes Without the Hassle

What youll need:9" cake panNon-stick cooking sprayHalf-stick of butter or margarine, melted16 oz of Oreos or other sandwich cookies1 Box chocolate instant pudding1 and a half cups of milkWhip cream Mississippi mud pie is just a silly name for a chocolate pie thats extremely decadent. People have made them for many years. Then, along came mud ice cream and mud cake. The delicious cakes and pies, though, are complicated and time-consuming to make - or are they? Theres a way you can cut down the hassle of making a mud cake and still produce a fabulous cake that looks and tastes quite elegant. And, with this technique, the mud cakes dont even have to be chocolate! The actual chocolate mud cake is made by starting with chocolate sandwich cookies, such as Oreos. Youll need 16oz - 35 to 40 cookies. Use a food processor to crush the cookies into crumbs or use a different technique. Place the cookies in a zipper bag and crush them with a rolling pin. Melt 5 tablespoons of butter or margarine and stir it into the cookie crumbs.

The above instructions makes a 9" pan of mud cake, but if you want a larger cake, simply double or otherwise adjust the recipe. Put the crumbs and butter mixture into a 9" pan which has been sprayed with non-stick cooking spray. Spread the mixture across the bottom and up the sides. Bake at 300 degrees for about 10 minutes. Allow to cool while you mix up the cake.

Mix up any chocolate cake - preferably chocolate fudge - and pour it into the square pan so that its only half full. Bake at 350 degrees until a toothpick, inserted in the middle, comes out clean. Allow the cake to cool completely. Turn the cake out onto a plate then flip it onto the desired cake plate so that the cookie crust is facing down. Mix up a box of chocolate pudding but use only a cup and a half of milk instead of two cups. This will make for a much thicker pudding. Pour the pudding on top of the cake and smooth it all over. Top the finished cake with a thick layer of whip cream and chill. You can use the same basic recipe to make any number of other pudding mud cakes. For example, crumble vanilla sandwich cookies, make a lemon cake, then top with lemon pudding and whip cream. The cake flavor and pudding flavor dont necessarily have to match. You can make a chocolate cake and top it with butterscotch pudding or make a yellow cake and top it with chocolate pudding. With so many choices you can literally make dozens of different mud cakes - all of them scrumptious!