Heavenly Hash Cake

Although we only spent a couple of years in Muncie, Indiana, we picked up a lot of things in that little community that we've carried with us ever since. It was there I learned to knit. There I fell in love with Little Kiddles. There we learned about candy strings. And it was there my mom acquired her recipe for heavenly hash cake.  For those of you who have never had it, heavenly hash is a fudgy chocolate cake topped with a layer of marshmallow cream and then with creamy chocolate frosting. It quickly became a family favorite. It was almost always my sister's choice for her "good report card" treat. My mom made it for church picnics, for family reunions, and for the fancy coffee hours my dad used to host for his university students. When there was a pan of heavenly hash cake in our house, all was well. The heavenly hash cake recipe is one of the oldest in my recipe box, and I used to make it fairly often. But then, for some reason, I stopped making it. In fact, until this past week, the last time I made it may well have been for my middle child's 7th birthday. That same dear child just celebrated his 24th birthday. He came home for a visit a few days after his birthday, and the day before he arrived, I found myself pulling out the old recipe to make a belated birthday/4th of July heavenly hash cake.  As I was spreading the thick chocolately batter into the pan, the comforting, familiar smell sent me hurtling back through time and space to the kitchens of my childhood. The next day when the cake was finished and my boy was home, I took my first heavenly bite, and once again, all was well.