Name: Smores Dessert Cake
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 45 min
Yield: 15 pieces
Ingredients: 3/4 cup graham cracker crumbs; 7 ounces cook & serve chocolate pudding (2 small boxes); 3 cups milk; 1 box Devil's Food cake mix; 1 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips; 8 ounce whipped topping (thawed); 3 Hershey bars (chopped); 1 cup graham crackers (chopped); 1 cup mini marshmallows

When you crave the perfect S’more but can’t seem to get outside around a fire this Smores Dessert Cake will knock your socks off! Our Smores Dessert Cake has a rich chocolate pudding cake base and is iced with whipped topping, Hershey bars, graham crackers, and mini marshmallows. We’ve made this cake many times and people of all ages LOVE it!

Smores Cake From a Cake Mix

We love Smores, but we need quick and easy recipes. Those are the only kind of recipes that fit into our schedule! The cook and serve pudding makes this cake unbelievably moist! Using a cake mix makes this unbelievably easy! Pudding cakes like this one are the most dense and moist cakes I’ve eaten!

Smores Dessert Cake is made by sprinkling a layer of graham cracker crumbs on the bottom of the pan and then using cook and serve pudding mixed with milk and a box of cake mix. Before baking sprinkle on mini chocolate chips.

The hardest part of making this cake is trying to avoid licking all of the spoons and eating that pudding mixture before it’s baked. There are no eggs in this cake, but it’s not a great idea to eat unbaked cake mix. Know that it’s hard, but if you bake the cake the wait will be TOTALLY worth it!

Smores Pudding Cake

My son is a 4-H member and each year he participates in the Dairy Foods contest. The contest requires that each recipe contain at least one cup of a dairy product. This cake is amazing for this contest because it has three cups of milk {and the dairy farmers cheer}! Make the cake even more dairy good by using real whipping cream instead of frozen whipped topping.

We have tested this recipe extensively. We made a crust with graham cracker crumbs and melted butter and then baked it. That crust is inconsistent and can burn while the cake is baking. Since we just wanted a graham cracker flavor on both the top and bottom of the cake we decided that simply sprinkling graham cracker crumbs gets the job done in the easiest way possible!

Know that there has been even more extensive testing and analysis done on the chocolate topping. We have sprinkled both semi-sweet chocolate chips and Hershey’s bars on top of the whipped topping. This layer has required extra taste testing because the vote is always so close.

A group of neighbor kids stopped by and helped with analysis and voting. When our family and neighbor kids have voted, the decision is always VERY close. The chopped pieces of Hershey’s bars have won by a small majority on each vote. We do unanimously agree that including chocolate of some sort is critical to a successful Smores Pudding Cake!

How to Make Smores Dessert Cake

Grease 9 x 13 inch pan. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Sprinkle graham cracker crumbs evenly in bottom of pan.
Stir pudding and milk together in a medium sauce pan and cook over medium heat. Stir constantly until mixture boils.
Pour pudding over cake mix in a mixing bowl. Stir well and pour into baking pan.
Sprinkle mini chocolate chips on top and bake for 25 – 35 minutes until cake is set.
Remove from oven and cool completely.
Spread whipped topping over cake and sprinkle remaining ingredients.

Tips for Making Smores Cake

Use purchased graham cracker crumbs or use a rolling pin to smash graham crackers into crumbs
When pouring batter over graham cracker crumbs do so as evenly as possible to avoid displacing the crumbs
Be sure to let cake cool before spreading whipped topping to prevent it from melting
Use frozen whipped topping or real whipped topping in a can or heavy whipping cream
We prefer devil’s food cake mix over other chocolate varieties
We prefer chopped Hershey’s bars to be sprinkled on the cake versus chocolate chips, but really both taste pretty great
Store covered in the refrigerator

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