Holla at my Ho Hos

We hosted Small Group on Sunday night and I decided to attempt (yet again) to make Ho-Ho bars. For those of you unfamiliar with this 7th Wonder of Northwest Iowa Kitchens, they consist of a chocolate cake-like base, a frothy white filling, and thick, chewy chocolaty topping. I suck at making them.

All seems well through the first two layers, then the third layer consistently kicks my butt. Every.Single.Time. This is what it is not supposed to look like:

But indeed, this is what it looked like after I followed the directions to boil the butter, milk, and sugar, then stir in the chocolate chips. I beat until thick, then spread. And spread it did not.  Instead of melting a bag of chocolate chips and spreading it over top to hide the disaster (as I have done on plural occasions), I decided to give up, go to the store, and buy the ingredients to make Easy Chocolate Poke Cake from Chocolate from The Cake Mix Doctor.  Abbie and Wade ended up the big winners as I sent half the Ho-Ho bars home with them and they actually taste very good despite their ugly appearance.  Now I have leftover cake AND ho-ho bars in my fridge. Oh the tragedy.

On Sunday I had a chance to consult the Queen of Ho Ho bars (my grandma who used to send me back to college with a box of these and other delicious treats- the ho ho bars rarely made it past Pocahontas).  She cleared up a few subtleties in the recipe I was following that seem to be the source of all my worldly troubles. She said the trick is to just stir it until the chocolate chips melt, but then QUICKLY pour it onto the white filling, moving the stream of molten chocolate back and forth and letting it spread like liquid across the surface. My recipe had said "beat until thick and then spread over second layer." Well, honey, you're not supposed to beat it too long or it will harden on impact, and that stuff "spreads" with a knife about as well as spreading cold peanut butter on a pile of cornflakes. So now I know, for the next time I decide to make these approximately never.

The good news is, the substitute cake turned out perfectly (it's chocolate cake with vanilla pudding poured down into holes while it's still hot and then topped with pudding and whipped cream) and Ryan even helped me mix up some Crystal Light for our guests!