Inside Out Ding Dong Cake

I worked at a Hostess discount bakery for a few months in high school. Whenever the food was about to expire, we pulled it from the shelves and threw it into grocery carts. Farmers would come buy the food (usually just the bread) for their animals. You could buy a grocery cart amount of almost-expired food for just $10. One night I bought a cart amount of food and loaded it into the trunk of my car. I drove a 1977 Triumph Spitfire, and the trunk was smaller than the cart. I didn't anticipate that when I bought the food, but I made it work. I drove home and surprised my family with a trunk full of Hostess treats. Sadly, I don't remember snagging any Ding Dongs since those were popular sellers. I think we did have a lot of the orange cupcakes, though. Also, I'm pretty sure these processed desserts didn't expire as quickly as their date stated!

If you've never had a Ding Dong, they are a round chocolate cake, covered in a chocolate frosting shell, filled with cream. This cake is what would happen if you turned a Ding Dong inside out-- chocolate in the middle, cream on the outside.

Inside Out Ding Dong Cake

There are three parts to this cake: the chocolate cake, the chocolate frosting for the filling/inside, the white frosting for the outside.

Chocolate Cake:

• 2 cups sugar
• 1 3/4 cups flour (I used gluten-free one-for-one flour)
• 3/4 cup dutch processed cocoa
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 cup oil
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup boiling water

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease two 9 inch round pans.
2. Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into a large bowl.
3. Add eggs, milk, oil, and vanilla.  Beat on medium speed for 2 minutes.
4. Stir in boiling water.  Pour batter into pans.
5. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Cool 10 minutes then remove from the pans to cool on wire racks.  Cool completely before frosting.

Cream Frosting for the Outside of the Cake:

• Seven Minute Frosting Recipe

Milk Chocolate Frosting for the Filling:

• 1/3 cup of dutch processed cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) of butter
• 3 cups of powdered sugar
• 1/3 cup of milk

1. Using a hand mixer, combine the cocoa powder and softened butter.
2. Alternate adding the powdered sugar and milk.

When the cake has cooled, frost one of the cake tops with the chocolate frosting, then set the other cake on top. Frost the entire outside of the cake with the cream frosting.

Check out my Death by Chocolate Cake recipe that inspired this cake!

I poured some of the batter into two ramekins for my girls to have mini cakes!

When I planned this cake, I had the intention of it tasting like an inside out Ding Dong, and it did not disappoint! I made mine with gluten free flour and plant based butter in case you want to attempt the same. It was hard for the four of us not to eat it in one sitting!

Chocolate Cake-- that your guests won't know is gluten free

I made this cake on Christmas Eve to serve for the Christmas Day meal that I cooked.  To be completely honest, I made this cake for myself.  I have food sensitivities and often can't fully enjoy traditional treats, because they'll literally make me sick and cause me to have a migraine that lasts two days or more.  I wanted to be able to have a yummy dessert that I could eat without worrying about how it would make me feel.  I did choose to alter a traditional recipe rather than making a "gluten-free" recipe dessert so that no one would notice it was gluten free.  I wanted it to taste like a regular cake and not having anyone guessing it was gluten free.

You can use regular flour, or you can make it gluten free, which is what I did.  This is a rich, dark chocolate cake.  The cake itself is almost a brownie texture with the potential to stick to the roof of your month.  One of my complaints with cake is most of them are dry, flaky, and boring.  Not this cake.  The icing is equally delicious.  I was tempted to just eat it out of the bowl by itself.

I'd like to make this again but experiment by making it dairy free.  I'd like to replace the eggs with flax or chia eggs.  I would also substitute the milk with almond milk.  I always cook with almond milk, but this time around I actually used 2% milk since I was serving it to other people and wasn't sure how the almond milk would do.  I would also like to substitute the white sugar with coconut sugar.  That will alter the flavor but will be gentler on my body.

This isn't a cake for people who don't like chocolate.  This is a cake for chocolate lovers.  I would name it Death by Chocolate Cake and make mini chocolate candy headstones to set on top surrounded by crumbled Oreo cookies (freshly dug graves, duh) if I was making this around Halloween instead of for Christmas dinner 😂.

I hope you enjoy this decadent cake!

Death by Chocolate Cake
adapted from "Especially Dark" cake and frosting recipes on back of Hershey's Dutch Cocoa package

• 2 cups sugar
• 1 3/4 cups Pamela's gluten-free flour
• 3/4 cup Hershey's Special Dark Dutch Processed Cocoa
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 cup oil (I used sunflower oil)
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup boiling water

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease two 9 inch round pans.  I then lightly sprinkled cocoa powder on the greased pans.
2. Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into a large bowl.  Add eggs, milk, oil, and vanilla.  Beat on medium speed for 2 minutes.  Stir in boiling water.  Pour batter into pans.
3. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Cool 10 minutes then remove from pans to wire racks.  Cool completely before frosting.

Frosting (or let's be real, I call it icing):

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
• 2/3 cup Hershey's Special Dark Dutch Processed Cocoa (I used half Hershey's Cocoa and half Sunflower brand cacao.  Cacao has super power nutrients and makes the icing taste even darker.)
• 3 cups powdered sugar
• 1/3 cup milk

Melt butter.  Stir in cocoa/cacao.  Alternately add powdered sugar and milk, beating to spreading consistency.  Add small amount of additional milk if needed.  Frost the cake!

This cake isn't overly complicated, and it's worth every bit of work!  I'm definitely going to make it again soon!

Note: If you want a little different (not so dark) chocolate cake, give this one a try.