Averie Cooks

Chocolate Cake 
-1 Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line the bottom of three 8-inch round cake pans with parchment paper and spray with baking spray; set aside.
-1 To a medium-sized mixing bowl, add the flour, cocoa, baking powder, salt, baking     soda, and whisk to combine; set aside.
-1 To a large-sized mixing bowl, add the sugar, eggs, and whisk until well combined.
-1 Add the buttermilk, oil, vanilla, and whisk until combined.
-1 Add the dry flour mixture and mix until just combined, don't overmix or it will create tougher cake.
-1 Pour in the hot water (warm it in a glass measuring cup in your microwave for about 1 minute; you don't need it to boil because that will cook the eggs, but it should be warm like as warm as you'd serve hot coffee) and whisk. At this point, the batter will be thin and runny; don't worry.
-1 Divide the batter into the prepared cake pans and bake in the preheated oven and for about 13-16 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with moist crumbs, but no batter. Baking times will vary from oven to oven, climate and ingredient variances, so check the cakes at 13 minutes to determine if they need to bake longer.
-1 Once baked, remove from the oven, and place the cakes still in the pans onto a wire cooling rack.
-1 Allow the cakes cool to for about 20-30 minutes, or until they reach room temperature.
-1 Run a butter knife around the edges to release the cakes and turn them out onto a flat surface such as a cutting board or plate. Keep them right-side-up, as they had been baking in the pan rather than inverting/flipping them upside down.
Graham Cracker Crust 
-1 To a medium-sized mixing bowl, add the crushed graham crackers (blitz them briefly in a food processor or add them to a plastic zip top bag and roll over them with a rolling pin, wine bottle, or similar; or use store bought graham cracker crumbs) and both sugars.
-1 Add the melted butter and mix with a spatula.
-1 Line the three round cake pans used to bake the cakes with plastic wrap.
-1 Evenly divide the graham cracker mixture between the 3 pans. Press into the bottom of each pan to create an even layer, making sure to keeping the graham crackers from moving up the sides of the pans.
-1 Place the pans into the freezer to set for at least 20 minutes, or until very firm almost "frozen". After they are set, the graham cracker crust layers are ready to use.
Cake Assembly
-1 To a cake stand or plate, place one of the graham cracker layers. They should be very firm and easy to manipulate and the plastic wrap will slip right off.
-1 Next, lay one on it the cooled cakes on top.
-1 Using a rubber spatula or an offset spatula, frost the chocolate cake with Marshmallow Buttercream Frosting (recipe live and link will work on Wednesday). The buttercream layer should be about ⅛” thick.
-1 Fill a piping bag fitted with a coupler and a round 1A piping tip with marshmallow buttercream.
-1 Pipe a border around the edge of the cake.
-1 Spoon on about ¼ cup of marshmallow fluff or marshmallow creme and spread to the buttercream border as best you can. Let it set for a moment so that it finishes spreading itself out.
-1 Using a kitchen torch on medium low heat, toast the marshmallow fluff*, staying a few centimeters away so as not to burn it. It will just take a few seconds toast to a nice brown color.
-1 Repeat steps 20 to 22 once more with another layer of graham cracker crust, cake, buttercream, and so forth.
-1 For the third layer, layer on the last graham cracker crust and chocolate cake.
Crumb Coat
-1 Frost the top and sides of the cake with a thin layer of buttercream. This is just the crumb coat so don’t worry if the graham cracker crust comes apart and there are pieces of it throughout the frosted cake. The crumb coat should almost be thin enough to see the cake through.
-1 Place cake in the fridge for 20 minutes to allow the crumb coat to set so that when you do frost it, the pieces in the crumb coat don’t move through the frosting.
-1 Frosting the Cake - Once the crumb coat has set, frost the sides and the top with the remaining marshmallow buttercream frosting. You should still have about ⅓ to ½ cup of frosting in your piping bag which will be used for the top.
-1 Using an offset spatula, smooth the sides out by holding the spatula parallel to the cake at a 45 degree angle. It will take a few times around the cake to smooth it out the sides.
-1 To smooth out the top, place the offset spatula at a 45 degree angle at the edge and pull in towards the center of the cake. Go around the cake until the edges are smoothed down and somewhat square.
-1 Pipe dots about the size of a quarter onto the cake about one centimeter from the edge.
-1 Pipe the remaining frosting in a circle in the center of the cake. This is used to hold the marshmallows in place.
-1 Using your hand, press crushed graham crackers onto the sides of the cake.
-1 Pile about 12 homemade marshmallows (link will work Friday) or large store bought marshmallows onto the center of the cake and work outwards. Don’t lay them all flat because when you start stacking, they will tumble. It's best to lay them at all different angles.
-1 Using your torch, on medium-low heat, toast the marshmallows until they are charred to your liking.
-1 Once you have toasted the marshmallows, place several chocolate bars on, around, and in between the marshmallows. I put a couple of whole mini chocolate bars on as well as a few broken pieces. The chocolate pieces will begin to slightly melt on their own from the residual heat in the marshmallows if using homemade. However, if they do not melt, and/or you're using store bought, you can use your torch to heat them for just a few seconds to create a melty chocolate effect noting that if you get too close to the chocolate or heat it for too long, it will burn.