Arretjes Cake = Comfort Food

I wanted to do this for a long time so, here we go! Every gal or "though" guy needs his or her comfort food every now and then to keep on going, no matter what the doctor says!

A couple of sweet people who where brave enough try the pepper and ice cream… This recipe is  much less exciting, but still very very good and no oven needed! If you have been reading my stories for a while you might know that I love a Big Mac every now and then, but this cake is just right up there on the list… The only difference is that this is a “grandma used to teach us” authentic Dutch recipe.

I promise you if you finally have all the ingredients in house (which are not too complicated to get) this should NOT take more than 15 minutes… Oh well maybe 20, depends if you have your kids, nephews and nieces, friends, friend’s kids or grandma herself helping you with the “smashing”…

What you need:

·         A bag of animal crackers (you only need about half the bag but the rest you can eat while you are “cooking”)…

·         12 tablespoons of confectioners powdered sugar

·         1 egg

·         5 tablespoons of Nestle cocoa (I am firmly against everything Hershey….)

·         And butter,  about 12 tablespoons of it, as in normal Imperial  (at Walmart) sticks of butter

If you double everything you get a nice cake form full of yummy sweetness...

How to make it:
Break  (smashing is even more fun) all the animal crackers into two or three pieces. You don’t want to make them too small but if you keep them as a whole they are too big. Melt the butter into a fluid mass. You can do this in the microwave (use a lid) or gradually on your stove. Add the sugar, cocoa and egg to your melted butter. Whip until you have no more lumps. Then add the crackers into your mixture while it is still fluid.  Put the whole mix into a cake pan which you have lined with aluminum foil, to take the cake out more easily after its done. You need to use a LOT of crackers, remember every animal counts! Hehe…

You let this sit for a night, and yes this is the HARD part because if you are like me; a little (very much so) impatient you just can’t wait the 12 hours until the next morning…  Just wait about 5 hours and it will probably be fine…

The trick is to get it stiff/hard enough so you can slice the pieces like you would do a normal cake. But even if it is not very slice able it still looks pretty funny and it sure tastes good…

I know you are NOT supposed to count the calories in this cake, so I wouldn’t recommend to make it once a week… although it is very VERY addicting.

Now that I am a full time swimmer (we went twice in two days, whoohoo…) to build up my stamina and overall physique, to be better prepared to handle the side effects of the chemo (we probably are going to start soon) I think it is also very important to make sure you eat your comfort foods (yes, besides all the healthy stuff) soooo, what better way to do that with some authentic Dutch Arretjes Cake!

I hope you enjoy and please let me know the results of your Dutch "cooking"!

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