OK - I just saw a demo of the recipe for the deep-fried Coca-Cola on our local morning news. (Let me say I still think Fried Dr. Pepper would be much better.)
They started with funnel cake mix from the grocery store. They used the one you've probably seen with the little Pennsylvania Dutch motif on the logo - don't know the brand and probably doesn't matter.
You make up the funnel cake mix per the instructions, except that you use regular Coca-Cola in place of all the water.
Then you heat your oil or crisco for deep-frying and you make funnel cakes like normal, using a funnel to swirl the batter into the grease, around in a spiral, then back and forth to make the sort of latticework pattern.
Instead of using Coke fountain syrup, they made the syrup themselves. To make the syrup, you use the rest of the 2-liter bottle of Coke and heat it in a pot on the stove to reduce it, like making a wine reduction (boil it down to where it's syrupy; not too high heat, though, so it won't crystallize or harden).
You pour hot syrup over each hot funnel cake right out of the fryer, then sprinkle with powdered sugar and cinnamon, also coconut if desired.
They didn't add whipped cream or a cherry like the contest winner, but I would. Unless it were Dr. Pepper, because you wouldn't need the cherry, since it would taste like something already.
I've got it!
Fried crisco, it's perfect!
They did these on the Today Show this morning, but I didn't have the sound on until they had already made them, so missed the recipe.
Theirs were balls, like the original - not funnel cakes. They put them in some of those old-fashioned replica Coca-Cola soda fountain glasses, oversized, and then poured Coke out of the bottle over them! Not a lot, to drown them or anything, but I guess to "infuse" them with Coke taste or something.
Cute serving style, anyway, in those glasses.