Celebrate the tastes of Arkansas: Wicked Mix
When I was growing up we would spend every Christmas or Thanksgiving with my grandparents who lived in the Hill Country of Texas, a solid 6 hours from our home in the Panhandle. When you grow up in Texas, especially outside of the major cities, you just get used to having to travel longer distances to get places and so 6 hours was pretty average for us. But when you’re a kid that is still a long time to be stuck in a car, especially when your Hanson CD has repeated itself for the third time and you’re only a third of the way there.
Luckily my mom would always pack the leftovers from our Christmas plates, and so we were able to pass the time devouring cookies, fudge, smoked pecans, and all manor of treats that insured a massive sugar high. One of my favorites, though, was the Chex mix she would make – extra butter, extra Worchestershire sauce, extra garlic. It was so good.
These days it’s not safe for me to make massive batches of cereal mixes because it will, without question, be eaten in a matter of hours. But that’s where Wicked Mix comes in. It has great crunch and flavor I love that it’s a local company – in fact, the offices are just a few doors down from where my husband works. I love that it’s spicy and sweet, super crunchy, and packed with a variety of ingredients. And I also love that the founder was simply making something he loved and then saw that it was so good he needed to share!
While the star of the show in this cake is certainly the Wicked Mix itself – I used the Spicy Original, although chocolate-laced would be great too – I tried to replicate a little bit of the spice blend to give the entire cake a little sweet-and-spicy flavor. The mix of sweet, soft cake and spicy, crunchy Wicked Mix is sure to be a hit!
A few cook’s notes:
- If you’re making this ahead of time wait to sprinkle the cake with the Wicked Mix until right before serving to keep the crunchy texture fully intact. It will stay crunchy even after a few hours, but no one likes soggy pretzels or cereal!
- I made my cake in 6-inch cake pans, even though the recipe called for 8-inch, because I wanted the layers to be taller. Feel free to do either.
- If you’re planning on serving this immediately, sprinkling the Wicked Mix on top of the middle layer of frosting is a great idea.
Ingredients
- ngredients:
- 3 whole eggs
- 1-1/4 cups water
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 1 16-ounce box devil’s food cake mix
- 3 cups preferred chocolate frosting (store bought or homemade)
- 3/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper, divided
- 1/4 teaspoon Worchestershire sauce
- 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 7-ounce)bag Wicked Mix Spicy Original, lightly crushed
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325.
- Spray two 6- or 8-inch cake pans with nonstick spray. Set aside.
- Whisk together the eggs, water and vegetable oil until well-mixed.
- Add the cake mix, Worchestershire sauce and 1/4 teaspoon of the cayenne pepper and whisk for 2 minutes.
- Pour evenly into the prepared cake pans and bake according to package directions until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
- Let the cake layers cool completely before frosting.
- In a bowl combine the frosting, remaining cayenne pepper and ground cinnamon.
- Stir until completely combined. Set aside until ready to frost.
- To build the cake, cut the domed part off of the layers so that they will lay flat.
- Place one layer in the middle of a cake plate.
- Top with about 1/2 cup of the frosting and spread to the edges of the layer.
- If desired, sprinkle 1/4 cup of Wicked Mix on top.
- Top with the second layer, then spread the top with another cup of frosting.
- Spread to the edges, then down the sides of the cake, gently spreading the frosting over the cake.
- Use more frosting if needed to cover the cake
- Sprinkle evenly with Wicked Mix and serve.
Notes
Enjoy!
Heather Disarro is a food-centric lifestyle blogger who is passionate about embracing the beauty that surrounds us in our everyday lives. She is a Texan living the expat life in central Arkansas with her husband, two sons, and two massive dogs. Heather writes her blog,
Um, I actually do like my cereal soggy. :p But on a cake, I suppose, it should be crunchy. This looks like such a neat recipe, and I had never heard of Wicked Mix. It sounds seriously addictive.