Two things are true: I cannot decorate cakes and I cannot post pics without paying the recipe tax. This is not a humble brag. The cake below represents all the skills I have. Piping and I are not friends. Also this is just a box cake that’s been doctored up, because when Gordon eats cake, he wants it to have a strong chocolate flavor.
Things you will need:
Electric mixer/beater of some sort.
2 8 or 9 inch cake pans.
Cake:
- Chocolate box cake (Duncan or Betty Crocker)
- vegetable oil
- eggs
- 1 cup coffee
- 1 packet hot cocoa mix (I used fancy kind someone gave us as a gift, but Swiss Miss is perfectly fine, as long as it doesn’t have dehydrated marshmallows)
Frosting:
- 2 cups unsalted butter, room temperature
- 4 cups powdered (confectioners) sugar
- 1 cup baking cocoa
- 1/3 cup heavy whipping cream
- 1 tbsp vanilla
Filling:
- A can of fruit pie filling of your choice
Warm up oven to 350 degrees F and grease two cake pans.
Look at the box cake instructions. They usually call for 3 eggs, 1/2 cup of vegetable oil or equivalent, and about 1 cup or so of water. We are going to substitute coffee for water. Make coffee, measure the same amount as the amount of water indicated on the box, and add the packet of hot cocoa. Stir until dissolved and let cool.
In a bowl, with an electric mixer, whip eggs for about 30 seconds, until uniform, add oil, the cooled coffee mix, blend for a bit. Add box cake mix. Mix until blended. Add 1/4 cup of water. Blend some more and pour into the cake pans. Bake for about 25 minutes, but start checking at 22 or so with the knife test. A knife inserted into the cake should come out clear without batter sticking to it.
Once baked, let the cakes cool. You can’t frost this cake when warm.
Make frosting. There is going to be a bunch of blending, and this is much easier with a standing mixer.
We’re going to throw butter into the bowl and cream it until it looks light and fluffy, by whipping it on medium speed for several minutes. When the butter is smooth and light, add half of the baking cocoa and mix on low speed for at least a minute. Add the remaining cocoa, mix. Start adding powdered sugar about 1/2 cup at a time. The frosting will get thick, so we will add a bit of whipping cream to thin it. Keep going until all of the sugar and heavy cream is gone.
Taste the frosting. If you want it sweeter, you can add more sugar. If it’s too thick, add more heavy cream. When you are happy with it, mix in the vanilla.
We are going to extract our cake from the pans and use a long knife to slice the raised part off the top so they are sort of level. Now we will layer: cake on the bottom, layer of frosting, half of the fruit pie filling, second cake layer, frosting on top and on the sides. Once the cake is frosted, I piped – very badly – a border and spooned the rest of the cherry pie filling on top. The sides have some slivered almonds on them, but that is purely optional.
Even though it’s just a box cake, it tastes yummy. Or as my husband put it, “pretty good.”
Happy baking.
I doctor box mix with your coffee suggestion, 1/4 c cocoa powder and 1/4 c almond flour. Add 1tsp almond extract to the batter. Mix as per directions.
Thanks for sharing! It looks delicious 🙂 I only make boxed cake mixes. They taste delicious and it’s so easy to add extra flavor. My favorite and go to is vanilla cake box mix from Pillbsury. I add egg whites instead of full eggs and extra vanilla extract and I mix the cake mix so it is light and airy. The most important part is my grandma’s frosting recipe- butter, milk, almond and vanilla extract- it’s the best. I get so many complements on this cake and thankfully the frosting is too thin to pipe 🙂
I also add coffee to chocolate cake, but I substitute the water with milk and add 2 teaspoons of instant espresso instead.
So technically, I’m the latte to your Americano ::wiggles eyebrows::
🤦♀️🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
yes, milk instead of water and add 1 more egg than called for on box and butter instead of oil. Some sour cream adds moisture too.
I doctor up box cakes too, growing up in the Caribbean, US box cakes were far to expensive. Once I moved the the US and it was cheaper than making it from scratch I never stopped. Hubby is the expert decorator though, he is very artistic and it translated to icing and fondant. He doesnt even like cake or icing if he is having it. But when the kids asked for unicorns, airplanes or tanks on their cakes, we pulled together and delivered.
Thanks for sharing!
I wonder if anyone just leaves them alone at this point 😀
Why would anyone punish themselves by not doctoring it? I swiped the ThreeCookingSisters recipe: 5 eggs instead of 3, Whole Milk instead of water & melted butter instead of vegetable oil. Duncan Hines is my choice over the others; Betty Crocker comes out dry even with all the added fat.
I use expresso powder in my chocolate cakes.
Look up a recipe for chocolate sour cream frosting. I think you’ll enjoy it.
I think I need to go get a boxed cake mix and some cherry pie filling….
Recipe tax made me laugh! Thanks! I’ve never tried anything fancier than just spreading the icing on top, so yours rocks. And it sounds very tasty to be honest.
I don’t use coffee in my chocolate cakes. One, I don’t like coffee. Two, I’m off caffeine. I know everyone says coffee makes chocolate confections taste more chocolaty (if that’s even a word). However, I can always taste the bitterness of the coffee if it is in the cake. If you like coffee, use it. 😄
I doctor my chocolate mixes with orange extract instead of vanilla most of the time. I like the chocolate and orange combination a lot. However, I would use vanilla if I was doing something like the above picture. 🎂
+ 1, I despise coffee.
I can always taste coffee in my chocolate baked goods as a yucky aftertaste. I have argued with family about it, lol. They always tell me that it can’tbe tasted, but I can always call them out on the cake/brownies, etc. when they put coffee in it.
But that just means more coffee for all the people who love it!
+1, actually counting my hubby, make that +2. Coffee bad, blech. Coffee smells so good, but it’s a dirty lie, tastes terrible. Also, all my caffeine intake is reserved for chocolate, one bite on the days I can have it at all. So it better b a good bite. Dark chocolate marshmallow from Munson’s.
+1 on coffee smells good but tastes blech. But when as a teenager I worked at donut shop, we ha d a huge ceramic bowl of chocolate icing to dip the glazed donuts into ice. I saw the baker pour a cup of black coffee into the bowl when the chocolate got too thick.
So pretty! I admire your efforts and the cake looks nummy! I can’t decorate worth a darn. I found a couple of Wilton brand mini Bundt cake pans at the local Goodwill shop. (charity store) They make 4 little cakes each and are non-stick as long as you use a baking spray with flour in it. Spray liberally and wipe out the excess. I went onto the deck to spray them. The cakes slid right out! A drizzle of icing and they are done. I wonder if your recipe would work in my little pans? Maybe with raspberry curd or fruit in the middle! I buy the curd, never tried making it.
Curd is so good! I’m a curd-mudgeon! Lemon, orange and passionfruit especially, yummm.
Lemon curd is my favorite. We have a prolific lemon tree and I make curd from our lemons. It’s like sunshine in a jar and also freezes very nicely! Hm, maybe I need to make some lemon curd today….
Also, heheh, curd-mudgeon. I relate.
I found a recipe for cranberry curd this year and another for a cranberry-lime pie.
Share?
Me, too! Lemon curd is lovely, but to me passionfruit curd tastes like New Zealand (one of my favorite places to visit).
I need to try that sour cream frosting someone mentioned. Much as I love the taste of butter, that much gives me the willies.
I’ve never been a fan of slivered almonds, completely aside from my almond allergy, and I suddenly realized why: it’s not just the texture dissonance. They also look like almond shrapnel to me. Like someone *accidentally* dropped some almonds and they shattered. Sorry, don’t mean to yuck anyone’s yum. It just occurred to me.
I feel the same about sprinkles. It just feels like grit or birdshot in a soft yummy cake.
Bird shot lol.
I also don’t like almond slivers on cake or food but like eating them in chocolate candy bars. Make it make sense 😂
Sometimes sprinkles taste like grit. I’m not sure about the birdshot though. 😉
The round sprinkles look like they could be used in a BB or pellet gun.
Late response to you Mod R (pesky work!) but I did not read that as birdshot. Bird-something, but not “shot”. Rofl
It does sound yummy!! Chocoholic here * raises hand* and your recipe is right up my alley! I’d probably top the whole thing off with my deep,dark chocolate sauce added over the filling, but that’s just me.🤣🤣🤣
There is an excellent cookbook dedicated to making different cakes starting with a box mix. It’s called the Cake Doctor Mix Doctor by Ann Byrne. (She also has a chocolate only version of it). Her position is start with a cake mix and add stuff to it to make hundreds of different types of cakes. Her only caveat is that the cake MUST have homemade frosting. She includes about fifty different frosting recipes. Everything from ganaches, icings, to buttercream, sour cream, boiled etc. Every cake I’ve made has turned out delicious. The most ambitious one I made was a chocolate cherry ice cream cake. I really had my doubts on that one as I was making it… Ot turned out to be delicious. My favorite cake is much more straight forward- a sour cream chocolate cake with sour cream frosting.
“Or as my husband put it, “pretty good.””
Your husband and mine went to the same school of food reviewing. When mine says something is “ok,” it means I can add it to the meal rotation. If I get a “pretty ok” it means “make it again tomorrow, please.”
My father in law developed a bad habit thinking he was funny. MIL is excellent cook and frequently had whole family over for dinner. It would put his napkin down when finished and say it was “adequate” Aunt who is therapist pulled him aside one day and told him it was downright hurtful. He never did it again.
👏
A revolving turntable under your cake plate helps with piping. When I was a kid in the 70’s, my mom took a cake decorating class. I still have her turntable from then. I went on Amazon and found much nicer ones for very little money.
https://a.co/d/fb8eoqg
The nice people at America’s Test Kitchen recommend this one, but it’s much more expensive. Regardless the price point, decorating on a rotating cake stand is guaranteed to up your decorating game. 🙂
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LYZ67ES/?tag=akoarticle-20
I veganise them by just adding sparkling something (water/fanta/coke/7up) in the stand mixer and baking. Yummy fluffy vegan cake
I doctor my boxes by swapping the oil for butter, adding an egg, and using whatever liquid I want instead of water. Orange juice, milk, coffee, hot cocoa, whatever I think will enhance or compliment the cake flavor. Been doing it for decades. I rarely make my own frosting though. I’m always afraid of screwing it up.
Thanks for paying the recipe tax!
Looks delicious!
I haven’t tried to pipe frosting in many years. I seem to remember saying I would never attempt it again! That could have been because I didn’t have the best tools and was rushing. But now that I’ve been watching all the Bake-off shows (British, American, & Canadian), I’m considering trying it again. Only problem is, neither my husband or son are big cake fans, so I’d have to eat it all! Have to wait for an event to make one!
We tend to add diced fruit to our boxed cake mixes, peaches or strawberries. Generally yellow not chocolate as a base 🙂
I don’t even like cake all like that, but this sounds delicious!!
Looks delicious and festive to me! ❤️
Have you tried using cake straps? They prevent the top from rising in a dome shape, so the top of the cake stays flat. They really work. If you don’t have store-bought straps, you can make your own with damp paper towels folded up inside aluminum foil. Just Google “cake straps.”
that frosting takes a ton of butter. I bet it is absolutely decadent!
Totally sympathize about wanting a strong chocolate flavor. Most chocolate cakes are a huge disappointment when I taste them. Cake does not like me right now – nor does anything else made with flour of any kind, not just grains *sob* – but if I ever get back to baking again, I will revisit this blog entry.
“nor does anything else made with flour of any kind” – me too, sigh. But then my go to for over-the-top chocolate “cake” is a flourless chocolate cake. There is a great box mix for that, and it is incredible!
<3 Thank you Lynne! Who makes it?
I use Duncan Hines Devil’s Food Cake mix. The icing I make from scratch with Ghirardelli’s baking chocolate and Mexican vanilla. Everything needing vanilla tastes better with Mexican vanilla. Been using it since we lived in Texas 50 years ago.
I would love to make this cake but the coffee would be bad for about half of the gang. Wonder if I could make it with Earl Gray tea? Which, BTW, is unbelievably tasty in hot chocolate. Maybe with orange curd on the top.
decaf coffee works just as well.
It is not the caffeine. There is some enzyme in coffee that causes a bad reaction. I blame their father.
But tea and chocolate mix surprisingly well.
My mom always added something extra whether it was zucchini, chocolate chips, bananas, or cherries inside. The only safe from mystery additions were birthday cupcakes. But she made mystery muffins much more often.
The key to making a cake look like u know how to pipe frost is to to start w the Star shaped tip, the make small rosettes/flowers evenly spaced all around the top. Hold the icing bag roughly vertical and close to the cake top, about an inch in from the edge. Slowly squeeze the bag until frosting comes out and rises up to the tip. Then squeeze a bit more out while pushing the tip a little into the frosting the stop, pulling the bag up and away. U can also practice in a plate or any surface to get the hang of it. There’s no way to do this wrong.
U just try to make them all about the same, going around the cake top, spaced evenly. Options include: spacing about an inch apart, or that followed by piping lines between each flower, or making the flowers close together so there’s no room to do anything else. If u really screw up, use a butter knife to lift off the messed up part.
I generally frost the whole cake then use different color for decoration. When making the flower/rosettes, keep the tip at a steady distance until ready to pull off. How much frosting u squeeze out determines how the flower looks.
For some reason ppl r unreasonably impressed by this, but it’s really not hard. Hopefully the above makes sense!
I’m seriously drooling over that!
We don’t have those kind of chocolate box here!
But I’ll totally steal the frosting recipe!
Hmmmm Yummy 😋
Thanks for sharing!!
Since I can not use Duncan Hines cake mixes,King Author Gluten Free cake mixes are what I have to use now. The chocolate cake mix is fantastic. Now I have to travel to a larger city to buy the mixes. But when I do go, I buy at least three or more cake mixes.
No need to travel, Susie — you can order from their website. 🙂
https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/search?query=gluten%20free%20cake%20mix#all_indices
I have a huge sweet tooth, so I set a rule a long time ago, if I don’t make it from scratch I don’t eat it. It keeps me from over indulging because I am also lazy. Box mixes are too easy, though I do make exceptions if I am baking for someone else. But a good way to get a more chocolatey flavor is to sub a cup of coffee for the water. Idk why coffee makes chocolate stronger. Seems weird but it works. This is one of my favorite from scratch cake recipes, she has one for cupcakes too if you prefer those. it’s super moist. idk how good the frosting is, I don’t like frosting so I skip that part. https://www.modernhoney.com/love-at-first-sight-chocolate-cake/
Sounds like how I make my holiday rum cake, the dessert you can get drunk on. the only difference is pudding mix instead of cocoa, and you pour a cup of 151 into the cake before icing. the icing seals in the booze.
Those raspberries look lovely!
Mocha! Yum!
This reminds me of the Cake Doctor books. Completely changed how I made box mix cakes. I’ve not tried the hot cocoa mix, definitely trying that next!! Thank you
I’ve been staying home fighting a cold for a few days and saw this while catching up on your posts….this looks delicious!
I am bored out of my mind being stuck in the house, so I think I must now go check to see if I have the ingredients on hand. Woo Hoo, yummy chocolate cake for dinner! (No other food, just yummy chocolate cake!!!!!!) 😂
Nailed it! Dessert should be about taste texture not fancy piping!
I put some instant coffee in my chocolate buttercream frosting, and some cinnamon
I love the recipe for Black German Chocolate cake from allrecipes.com. It make so much cake that I have enough cake for home and work.
Thank you for sharing this recipe. It looks and sounds delicious. And I’m with Gordon – anything that is chocolate should taste VERY chocolate!
Box cake mixes used to be 18.25 ounces but some manufacturers have cut the amount down to 15 or even 13 ounces so when you make the cake, it doesn’t rise the way it used to.
So much love in that cake! Thanks for all the baking talk everyone. Thanks for the tips and book recs.
I add instant Cafe Bustelo to my chocolate cake (recipe on the Hershey’s Cocoa container). I’ve made a lot of chocolate cakes, the one from Hershey’s is my favorite and so tender. I also use the chocolate frosting recipe from the container. The coffee really boosts the chocolate flavor, and Cafe Bustelo is very bold.
Chocolate and cherries are a perfect combination in any form.
This cakes is so Russia-coded, IMO! Especially with your origins, Ilona.
Ever since I read a couple of Russian-set fantasies where they took cherries/cherry preserves in their tea, I can’t help but associate the two 🍒
I think cherries in tea sound so good and really want to try it.