This cake is overloaded with good stuff. Or, more accurately, simply loaded. I took a few liberties with Jocelyn’s recipe for Mississippi Mudslide Cake from her new Grandbaby Cakes cookbook, swapping the Kahlua for bourbon, so I figured calling it a Kentucky Mudslide Cake was more appropriate. You could also use whiskey and you’d have yourself a Tennessee Mudslide Cake. Or some sultry spiced rum for a Jamaican Mudslide Cake. Or… Well, you get the point. Basically, any booze’ll do.
I may have been a little heavy handed with the bourbon, adding an entire 3 tablespoons to a half-batch of the whipped cream (sometimes my math skills get a little tipsy… totally unrelated to the recipe). Upon sharing it with our neighbor-down-the-hall, he declared that it reminded him of his Grandmother’s bourbon balls. My grandmother never made bourbon balls, but I assume that’s a good thing. There’s no denying it tastes like bourbon, I’ll tell you that much.
I love how easy this cake comes together. No finicky buttercream or fancy frosting skills required (as is typically the case when I bake a cake, which is probably why I don’t bake them more often). But in the case of this cake, the messier the better in my opinion (oh look at that delicious, oozing ganache!)
I’ve printed the original full-scale recipe below, which would make a 9″ layer cake, perfect for a party. I halved the recipe and used my favorite little 6″ cake pans, since a 9″ cake for two of us is overkill. I also made a stabilized whipped cream, thinking it would hold up a bit better to the weight of the cakes themselves. A stabilized whipped cream is basically regular whipped cream with a bit of gelatin added in. As it sets it’ll firm up and hold its shape better than normal whipped cream, which makes it perfect when you need to transport the cake or it needs to hold up in warmer weather. The only other change I made was to use chocolate wafer cookies in place of chocolate sandwich cookies, since it just happened to be what I had on hand (and I always get the side-eye from Taylor when I ever-so-sweetly ask him to run to the grocery store for a last minute ingredient).
Also, don’t miss out on the great giveaway Jocelyn is hosting as well, and you could win one of 5 signed copies of her book along with a KitchenAid mixer!
