RaCK-It-Up-To-Goodness Filling (Raspberry, Chocolate, and Kahluah, that is...)

I know.  It's a cheesy name for a cake filling:  RaCK-it-up-to-Goodness??  I can't help it, though.  I've watched Waitress again so everything coming out of the kitchen is going to have a kitschy name until the novelty wears off or y'all tell me to stop - whichever comes first.

Why did I come up with another filling?  I've a lifelong friend who's baby is graduating high school.  He'd called last week wanting one of the chocolate overloads, or whatever might be good.  He's trusting in what he's had from this cakery before for something appropriate, meaning good enough to amaze half of Hattiesburg.   And then there's a local youngster graduating high school Friday, dear to my heart...one of the fellows in and out of here often enough he has a house key.  I know both of these young men love chocolate and the chocolate overload.

But I wanted something a littttttle more for them.

I thought and thought, "Okay, Mayree.  Chocolate cake.  How 'bout the J-Rob Special (thin chocolate layers of cake with melted raspberry jam on each layer, each layer covered with dark chocolate ganache, stacked, and covered with ganache again)?  No.  Need to save that specialness.  Uhmmmmm...Hmmm.... OH!  Raspberry cream filling?  It's a start but not quite right.  Raspberry chocolate cream filling?  Sounding better.  Raspberry, chocolate, and Kahlua??  Yes!"  See how I think in incomplete sentences?

So.  Without further ado, I present RaCK It Up To Goodness creamy cake filling (which will also make one fine pie filling).

Ingredients:
2 - Jello Chocolate Fudge instant puddings
2 - 8 ounce cream cheese
1 cup chocolate syrup
1 1/2 cup raspberry jam
1 cup milk
1/2 cup Kahlua
1/2 cup coffee
2 - 16 ounce tubs of whipped topping

This makes a very large bowl of filling but remember I've two large cakes to fill.  It can be easily cut in half.  This is one of the few places where the brand matters:  Polaner All Fruit is worth the extra money for intense flavor uncomplicated by pectin.

I didn't have milk but did have evaporated milk.  Y'all know to thin it with equal amounts of water, right?  I used one half cup evaporated milk and one half cup water.  Lots of folks don't like the taste of evaporated milk.  I grew up on it and don't have a problem substituting it for regular milk.

I nuked the raspberry jam to make it less lumpy and more readily mixable.

In a large bowl mix the cream cheese, chocolate syrup, and raspberry jam.

This is lots easier if the cream cheese is room temperature.  It smells absolutely wonderful at this point.

I didn't bother washing the measuring cups;  it's all going in the same filling.  Conserve water, it's not nearly as renewable a natural resource as folks say it is.  Now mix the cup of milk, Kahlua, coffee, and two packs of instant pudding.

 

Mix the pudding mixture into the cream cheese stuff

until everything is well incorporated.

And lastly, fold in the two tubs of whipped topping

until everything has been thoroughly blended.

Give it a taste.  You know you want to.

"Mayree?"  you ask, "Wouldn't this be better with real whipped cream?"  You betcha.  Profit margin notwithstanding, though, most folks in these parts won't know the difference -- and couldn't afford it if they did.

Like I said, this is one huge bowl of incredible filling.  Kind of like Jenna's chocolate strawberry oasis pie from the movie Waitress, the flavors are complex, presenting themselves one by one.  The immediate taste is chocolate, followed quickly by coffee with a punch (that'd be the Kahlua), rounding out with a definite raspberry finish.  It's a very rich and very light filling, all at the same time.  

I'm tickled with it.  Y'all find some occasion to try it out.  I don't think you'll be disappointed.