Rx for Ordinary Cake Mixes

The Cake Mix Doctor, Deluxe Edition, By Anne Byrn
Rodale

Discover the secret of “doctoring” everyday cake mixes into fantastic desserts that rival homemade. In The Cake Mix Doctor, Deluxe Edition, you’ll find 200 great-tasting custom desserts from layer cakes and sheet cakes to cheesecakes, pound cakes, bundt cakes, icebox cakes, coffee cakes, bars, brownies, biscotti . . . and the secret is, they all start with simple supermarket cake mixes.

When you doctor up packaged mixes with special touches like pure almond extract, coffee, lime or orange zest, chocolate shavings, or rum, then top them with one of the book’s special frostings, you’ll have all the secrets for turning any mix into a masterpiece.

This 500-page hardcover book contains easy instructions, allowing even beginning bakers to turn out perfect cakes every time, and more than 150 color photos, so you can see exactly what you’re baking.

One show-stopper is the chocolate praline cake. This dreamy, creamy delight is adapted from a Pillsbury Bake-Off contest winner. When you serve it, your family will be the winners.

Chocolate Praline Cake

• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter, cut up
• 1/4 cup heavy (whipping) cream
• 1 cup packed light brown sugar
• 3/4 cup chopped pecans
• 1 package (18.25 ounces) devil’s food cake mix with pudding
• 1 cup water
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 3 large eggs
• 1 square (1 ounce) semisweet chocolate (for garnish)

Sweetened Cream

• 1 cup heavy (whipping) cream
• 1/4 cup confectioners’ sugar

Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Set aside two 9-inch round cake pans.

Place the butter, 1/4-cup heavy cream, and brown sugar in a small heavy saucepan. Cook over low heat, stirring, until the butter is melted, three minutes. Pour the mixture evenly into the cake pans and sprinkle it evenly with the chopped pecans. Set the pans aside.

Place the cake mix, water, oil, and eggs in a large mixing bowl. Blend with an electric mixer on low speed for one minute. Stop the machine and scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Increase the mixer speed to medium and beat two minutes more, scraping the sides down again if needed. The batter should look well combined. Divide the batter between the prepared pans, pouring it over the pecan mixture, then smoothing it out with the rubber spatula. Place the pans in the oven side by side.

Bake the cakes until they spring back when lightly pressed with your finger, 35 to 37 minutes. Remove the pans from the oven and place them on wire racks to cool for 10 minutes. Run a dinner knife around the edge of each layer and invert each onto a rack to cool, praline side up.

Meanwhile, prepare Sweetened Cream by whipping 1 cup heavy cream with an electric mixer on high speed until thickened. Add sugar and beat on high speed until stiff peaks form, 1 to 2 minutes more.

Place one cake layer, praline side up, on a serving platter and spread half the Sweetened Cream on top. Place the second layer, praline side up, on top of the first and frost it with the remaining Sweetened Cream, working with clean, smooth strokes. Grate semisweet chocolate and scatter on top of the cake for garnish. Slice and serve.

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