My BFF retired last week, and her daughter and I conspired to surprise her with a couple family celebrations. When I asked what kind of cake I should make to celebrate, Daughter said that BFF really doesn’t care much for desserts but she loved Cheetos. I was up for the challenge!
After a quick search on Pinterest, I found a recipe that sounded interesting, maybe tasty, and definitely do-able. (I can’t relocate the original recipe to give credit to the creator.) I started with a 17-1/2 ounce bag of regular Cheetos. I opened the bag and then started crushing the pieces into smaller pieces. I poured the bag’s contents into a large bowl.
On the stovetop, I melted 3 tablespoons of butter and one 10-ounce bag of mini-marshmallows until they were thoroughly melted. (Yes, this is like Rice Krispie Treats.) I poured the marshmallow mixture into the Cheetos bowl, stirred to combine, and then patted it out into a 9X13″ pan, already sprayed with cooking spray.
I could have stopped there, but why not take it over the top? Remember, I’m married to a pastry chef. I had Dan the Man make a marshmallow cream icing (he called it Italian meringue), which I spread over the Cheetos. Dan the Man then used his mega-torch to brown the top. Yum! I then used a second bag of Cheetos to write a message (I tried to fit ‘Congrats’ without any luck), and the cake was now one of a kind for BFF. Surprisingly, it was a pretty tasty treat!
It’s funny how a chance thought morphs into something memorable. That happened to my BFF as she wondered about the word clodhopper. She looked up the word online, which lead her down the rabbit hole of definitions, images, and tangents. Once she learned that Canadians make a special treat called clodhoppers, she was off and running to the grocery store. 
crapsmanship 