A really easy cake - chocolate crispy cake.

Today is tax day and it was also one of the fitness center instructor's birthday. Everyone is very conscious of weight so making treats is a challenge. I remembered that at St. J's lots of people really enjoyed the Chocolate Crispy Cake so I gave it a try here. Although the word is that people just don't eat the sweets when people bring them in, they did a good job of polishing off this cake, along with the fresh local strawberries that someone brought and mini bran muffins. Here's the recipe:


Chocolate Crispy Cake
Prep: 20 minutes plus time to let the chocolate set up again
Cook time: Microwave 2 minutes
Makes: 24 servings
Ingredients:
4 ounces semisweet chocolate, broken into pieces (I use a heaping 2/3 cups chocolate chips)
2 tablespoons butter or margarine
1 bag (10 1/2 ounces) miniature marshmallows
6 cups crispy rice cereal (6 ounces)
1 cup chopped pecans (original recipe called for salted peanuts)
1 cup M&M's (original called for mini M&Ms but I like to use the regular sized ones because there’s more chocolate and less candy coating)
Directions:
1. Spray 10- to 12-cup fluted baking pan (such as a Bundt) with nonstick cooking spray.
2. In large bowl, heat chocolate and butter in microwave oven on High 1 minute, stirring once during heating. (If you have a high powered microwave, you may want to use a lower setting; and if you have a lower powered microwave nuke it a little longer.) Remove from microwave; stir chocolate mixture until melted and smooth. (The chocolate chips hold their form so you can’t tell by looking at them whether they have melted). Add marshmallows to mixture. Heat in microwave on High 1 minute longer; stir until marshmallows are melted and mixture is smooth.
3. Add cereal, pecans and M&M's to chocolate mixture. Stir until all ingredients are coated and mixture is well combined.
4. Transfer cereal mixture to prepared pan, pressing mixture down with fingertips. Let stand at least 1 hour to set chocolate. (In warm weather, refrigerate to set cake.)
5. To unmold, with knife or metal spatula, loosen cake from side of pan; invert onto serving plate. Cut into slices (24) to serve (original recipe cuts into 16 pieces but the pieces are too large). Store in covered container at room temperature up to 3 days.
Nutritional information for each serving: About 165 calories, 3 g protein, 25 g carbohydrate, 7 g total fat (3 g saturated), 1 g fiber, 4 mg cholesterol, 150 mg sodium.


Here’s the original link with the nutritional information (the nutritional info is for 16 pieces in a cake but I’ve found that the cake slices into 24 pieces very easily and those slices are big enough):
http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/food/desserts/crispy-cake-0606