Heavenly Hash Chocolate Snack Cake

Heavenly Hash Recipe

A chocolate dessert or snack cake with marshmallows and pecans that my husband enjoyed while growing up. The recipe came from his grandmother, Mrs. Opal Burchfield. Mrs. Opal I called her. She’s been gone now for almost 25 years, so as you can imagine, it’s a very old recipe.

I was surprised when I did an internet search to find that the name Heavenly Hash turned up recipes for anything from fruit salad to candy, to ice cream! Sounds like you can come up with any concoction of goodies and call it Heavenly Hash)))

I’m not sure when she wrote this recipe but it’s in her own handwriting. She was 91 when she passed away so I’m sure she wrote this many years before that.

History

Even before my husband and I married, I had opportunities to enjoy Mrs. Opal’s Heavenly Hash. Anytime there was a function in the community, at church, a family gathering, or a death, you would always find a tray of these chocolate marshmallow goodies that Mrs. Opal had sent.

You know we’re in the south and I reckon we think that when someone dies, the family will immediately go hungry, so we take food. All jokes aside, it’s a very kind gesture and if you have been on the receiving end of it you do appreciate it. I’m not making light of it)))

Heavenly Hash Recipe

Heavenly Hash has a brownie or cake-like base, then a layer of lightly toasted marshmallows and a chocolate fudge frosting, You cut them into small squares, They are very rich so you don’t need large pieces. They remind me very much of chocolate marshmallow bunnies. Who doesn’t love those!

Batter

2 Cups Sugar

4 Tablespoons Cocoa (I like Hershey’s)

1 Cup Nuts (Chopped pecans or walnuts)

1 Cup Flour (I used self-rising)

2 Sticks Oleo Melted (I used one stick of oleo and one of butter, no particular reason, but I had a stick of oleo I thought I would get rid of)

4 Eggs

Mix the above ingredients together and spread into a prepared rectangular pan. Her hand-written recipe says loaf pan, but I don’t think that is what she meant. It wouldn’t fit into a loaf pan, so a regular 9″ x x 13″ pan is what to use.

I like to use parchment paper in the bottom of my pans and spray the paper and sides with cooking spray.

Also, I added 1 teaspoon of vanilla flavoring to my batter. I just think you have to have a little vanilla)))

Bake the cake at about 350° or a little lower depending on your oven. I bake mine at around 325″ and start checking after about 20 minutes. Do the toothpick test since all ovens are not the same.

Marshmallows

1 Bag of Marshmallows

The recipe calls for 1 bag of marshmallows. I used a pound bag of miniatur marshmallows. I’m not sure how many ounces came in a bag at the time that she wrote this, but I figured….more could only be better.

Remove the cake from the oven and while it’s still warm, sprinkle the miniature marshmallows on top. Return to the oven for just a few minutes for the marshmallows to begin to melt and be lightly browned.

Be sure to let the cake cool completely before frosting. It’s impossible to spread the frosting over warm marshmallows. But with them browned a little bit, and cooled, it’s a lot easier.

Heavenly Hash Frosting

1 Box Powdered Sugar

1 Stick Oleo

4 Tablespoons Cocoa

Pet Milk

I didn’t have a box of powdered sugar, mine was in a bag. A box of confectioners sugar usually weighs 16 oz so you would think it would contain about 4 cups. But an internet search said anything from 3.5 to 3.75 cups. So I started with 3.5 thereabout. I figured I could add more if needed.

Sift the powdered sugar too. This is something that I’ve only started doing recently and it really helps to get your frosting smooth and creamy without lumps.

I added 1/2 tsp of Vanilla to my frosting too)))

You soften the oleo, or in my case, I used butter. But don’t melt it. Add the Pet milk which is just evaporated milk from a can. Pet milk has a consistency similar to half and half. It’s a little thicker than just regular milk from the frig. I used heavy cream in mine, just because I had some that needed to be used up.

But just add one tablespoon at a time until you can reach a spreadable consistency. I possibly could have thinned mine a bit more but I didn’t want to get it too thin and then have to add in extra sugar.

Drop the frosting by dollops over the cooled marshmallow topping and spread with a knife. Don’t fret if you don’t get complete coverage. Mine wasn’t. But in the end, once you cut them into squares, no one is the wiser.

The frosting is very fudgy. Cool completely and cut into small squares. You may have to frequently wipe off the knife and dip it in water to get clean cuts. My cuts were a bit messy but no one complained)))

Store Heavenly Hash in the refrigerator in a sealed container. It will keep for days, mine is going on 10-12 days and I just had a piece when I started writing this))

Memories

Treasure those hand-written recipes like my husband’s grandmother’s for Heavenly Hash, and keep them in a safe place. They may not seem important to you at the time, but years on down the road, they become treasures. They invoke sweet memories and we can all use as many of those as we can get)))

Note:

I’m not the only one who remembers eating these yummy bars growing up)) Here’s a Facebook comment from an old friend:

Phyllis “She would bring them to the Homecoming and Lynn and I eat our weight in them. Oweda show this to Lynn!”

More from My Blog