A foolproof recipe for enhanced cake mix that will wow you and your fellow cake eaters with its simplicity and deliciousness.
Three years ago, my husband requested a cake for his birthday (chocolate on chocolate, natch) and I knew I wouldn't be satisfied just baking a box cake and slathering it with store bought frosting. Yes, they are simple and straightforward, but I wanted something more! I'd also been DVRing episodes of the Barefoot Contessa (I ❤ Ina!), and felt more than a little inspired by the wedding cake episode. I wanted to bake a yummy cake, make frosting from scratch, and decorate my first-ever layer cake. Because I wasn't quite ambitious enough to bake from scratch, I turned to the interwebs and came across several recipes that promised to improve basic supermarket mixes. I settled on one in part due to its inclusion of sour cream (cuz yum!) and gave it a whirl. OH MY GAWD. It was the best cake I'd ever made.
It was delightfully chocolate-y both inside and out! More importantly, it was moist without being fudge-y. I didn't make quite enough frosting, so the middle layer was homemade whipped cream, but he didn't seem to mind. The next year, I was at it again, re-using the same recipe, this time with peanut butter buttercream frosting:
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| Birthday Cake 2015 |
Once again, it was a hit! The addition of mini Reese's cups and Ghirardelli chocolate shavings didn't hurt either.
I didn't make a cake for his birthday in 2016 (we were wrangling an almost-six-month old Little Dude), but I did get around to it again this year. His birthday falls right after Valentine's Day so I decorated it with a pretty basic powdered sugar heart. In case you are keeping track, this year's cake had chocolate peanut butter buttercream frosting, the best of both worlds!
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| Birthday Cake 2017 |
Suffice to say, I'd found a cake "recipe" that is fool-proof, moist, and far superior to the back-of-the-box recipe. The key ingredients here are sour cream, pudding mix, and coffee (for chocolate cakes). My favorite part about the recipe is that you can customize it by just using a different flavor of pudding mix (I've been meaning to try a white cake with coconut flavored pudding), and it can be prepared by just dumping a bunch of stuff into your stand mixer without the need to measure more than a few ingredients (and, no sifting required, sorry Ina!).
I plan to write posts with cake decorating tips as well as my favorite buttercream frosting recipes in the very near future, but for now, let's talk cake! Happy baking!
Ingredients:
1 x 15.25oz package cake mix (*see tip)
1 x 3.4oz package instant pudding mix (*see tip)
¾c sour cream
¾c vegetable oil
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
2t pure vanilla extract
½c warm coffee or water
Instructions:
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease two round 9-inch cake pans. (*see tip)
- Dump all ingredients into the bowl of a stand mixer and beat for ~2 minutes on medium speed, scraping the sides of the bowl as necessary. Alternatively, use a large mixing bowl and a hand mixer.
- Split batter evenly between cake pans. (*see tip)
- Bake 25-30 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted in the center of the cakes comes out clean. If the cakes are especially uneven, they may finish at slightly different times, so be sure to check them independently! (*see tip)
- Remove from oven and cool completely (this is important!) before removing from pan and decorating with your favorite buttercream frosting.
- I like to use Betty Crocker Super Moist mixes.
- Slightly larger (3.56oz) packages of instant pudding work fine too.
- Grease the cake pans with a thin layer of softened butter and a dusting of flour (this is what Ina taught me to do) or an even layer of non-stick spray.
- If you want to get crazy about splitting the batter evenly, you can measure by weight with a food scale like this one (à la Alton Brown), but it really isn't necessary.
- Rotate the pans 180° halfway through baking to ensure even cooking (another Ina tip).
Have you made this recipe? or eaten it? Looking forward to trying it out? Let me know in the comments!
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