Italian Chocolate Ruby Cake

1Steve's Note:

This is my own recipe done after some experimentation. It's quick and easy using a cake mix and cookies as the starting ingredients to make a truly unique gourmet dessert. The vermouth in the recipe is added to the individual served slices just before serving, allowing you to leave it out on slices served to children ;)

• Total Time: 1 hrs 16 mins
• Prep Time: 16 mins
• Cook Time: 1 hrs

Ingredients:

Serves: 12

Yield: 1.0 Ten Inc ...

• 1 box duncan hines dark chocolate fudge cake mix
• 1 ¼ cups water
• 1⁄3; cup vegetable oil
• 3 large eggs
• 1 (12 ounce) package nabisco raspberry fig newtons raspberry-filled cookies
• Italian sweet vermouth , chilled (make sure you buy sweet vermouth. There is a big difference in flavour between sweet and dry vermout)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350ºF.
2. Grease a 10 inch spring form pan.
3. Prepare cake mix according to package directions (necessary ingredients to prepare mix are included in the above ingredient list), and pour the prepared mix into the greased spring form pan.
4. Press the Raspberry Newton cookies into the batter on their sides in a circular fashion like the spokes on a wheel about 3/4 to 1 inch in from the side of the pan (the cookie should be covered on all sides with batter, so it should not touch the side of the pan).
5. The raspberry filling should be facing you not the sky if you placed them in correctly (in other words if the filling is facing upwards then you placed the cookies in on their ends not their sides) Use the entire package of cookies.
6. If necessary, make a second smaller inner circle of cookies to use them all up.
7. Being careful not to let the cookies fall down flat on their bottoms (if a few fall don't worry about it, when baked it will make for a more interesting pattern) place in preheated oven and Bake at 350ºF for about 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
8. Remove from oven and cool for 20 minutes then remove the outside of the spring form pan and allow to cool the rest of the way completely.
9. The cooled cake when sliced will have a beautiful pattern in it of red rubies edged in white from the cookies buried in the dark chocolate cake.
10. To serve Slice, and wet each slice generously with the chilled sweet vermouth.
11. While the vermouth really makes the flavor of this cake, adding the vermouth separately to each slice allows you to serve the cake without the vermouth to any children present.