Delicious Pudding Cake Mix Recipes

Cakes are a weakness for people who have a sweet tooth. Be it a birthday, wedding or an anniversary, people love to have cakes and pastries as their dessert. Baking a cake is an art, at which some people are experts. But, people who are apprentices at cooking, can have a difficult time while baking one. Baking a cake is a long procedure and needs a lot of time and patience, as one wrong measure can ruin the cake. However, now one can make use of the ready-made cake mix packets (flour, sugar, baking powder and flavoring), that are readily available in grocery stores. Cake mixes were introduced in 1947-48, by General Mills and Pilsbury, and since then, many companies have come out with their own cake-mixes. Combining pudding with the cake mix has also become common among many people.

Lemon Pudding Fruit and Nut Cake

Ingredients

• 3¾ ounces lemon pudding mix, instant
• ¼ cup apricot brandy
• 1 package spice cake mix
• 4 large eggs
• 2/3 cup apricot nectar
• 8 ounces sifted powdered sugar
• ½ cup vegetable oil
• 4 ounces candied pineapple
• 2-3 tablespoons apricot brandy
• 4 ounces candied cherries
• 8 ounces walnuts
• 8 ounces dates

Preparation

1. Preheat the oven at 350° F. Chop the pineapple, cherries, walnuts and dates and keep them ready.
2. In a small bowl, break the eggs one by one, stir well and set aside.
3. Take cake mix in a large mixing bowl, and add ¼ cup apricot brandy, pudding mixture, apricot nectar and vegetable oil. Pour the eggs into the mixing bowl for at least 2 minutes, till it becomes smooth. Sprinkle chopped nuts and stir again.
4. Grease a 10 inch baking pan, and spread the batter in it evenly. Keep it in the oven and let it bake for 55 minutes. Before taking it out, check whether the cake is completely baked.
5. Let it cool for 10-15 minutes. In a small bowl, take 1 cup sugar and add apricot brandy to it. Mix well and pour over the cake. Your fruit and nut cake is ready to be eaten.

Choco-Chip Pudding Cake

Ingredients

• 8 ounces chocolate chips
• 2 eggs
• 1 packet chocolate pudding mix
• 2 cups milk
• 1 packet chocolate pudding mix, instant
• 4 ounces nuts, chopped

Preparation

1. Cook pudding with 2 cups of milk, as instructed in the packet cover and keep aside for cooling.
2. In a large mixing bowl, empty the contents of the cake mix and combine it with the eggs. Beat it to make a soft and fluffy batter. Pour in the pudding and stir till it blends completely.
3. Grease a 9x13 sized baking pan and spread the cake batter into it. Drop in chocolate chips and nuts and bake in a preheated oven at 350° F, for not more than 30-35 minutes.

Banana Pudding Yellow Cake

Ingredients

• ¾ cup mashed banana
• 1 package banana flavored pudding, instant
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup water
• 1 packet yellow cake mix
• 1 dash vanilla extract
• ¼ cup vegetable oil

For Glazing:

• 16 ounces confectioners' sugar
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 4 ounces chopped walnuts
• white icing

Preparation

1. Take a large bowl, and mix the pudding and cake mix. Make a hole in the middle of the batter and put in eggs, water, mashed bananas and oil. Stir till all the ingredients are mixed well.
2. Transfer the batter into a 10 inch greased baking pan and bake it in a preheated oven for 50-55 minutes at 350° F.
3. Take it out of the oven and keep aside for cooling.
4. In a small bowl, take sugar and mix it with milk. Pour over the cake and top it with white icing. Decorate it with chopped nuts and your banana pudding yellow cake is ready.

Baking a cake has surely become a simple task with the use of cake mix. Try these pudding cake mix recipes and come out with cakes as delicious as homemade cakes, made in the traditional way.

Flower Birthday Cake Ideas

Nobody likes to have a plain birthday cake no matter how great it tastes. A birthday cake should not only taste delicious, but should also be great to look at. A well decorated birthday cake is what every birthday girl or boy looks forward to. A very popular design in birthday cakes is the flower birthday cake. There are two ways in which you can make a flower birthday cake. One is to make a simple sponge cake or chocolate cake and then decorate it with flowers made with different types of icing.

The other is to shape the cake like a flower and then cover it with plain butter icing or royal icing. The first method of decorating a regular cake with flowers made with icing is a simpler method to master. Before you try to mold flowers with icing for your flower cake, there are a few things that you need to keep in mind. You need to choose the right icing with the right consistency for making the icing flowers. The icing needs to be a bit stiff, so that it can hold the shape of the petals of flowers. If the icing is not of the right consistency, the flowers will simply not hold their shape and it will ruin the birthday cake. Here we are going to discuss how to make a flower birthday cake.

Some of the best icing for making a flower birthday cake is buttercream icing and royal icing. You can also make fondant flowers by using fondant for decorating a flower birthday cake. Whichever type of icing you choose, make sure that it is of the right consistency. If you notice that the icing is not holding the shape of the flowers, then the icing is probably not stiff enough and you need to add a bit of icing sugar to it. On the other hand, if you notice cracks on the flowers, then the icing is probably too stiff and you need to add a bit of liquid. Given below are a few ideas on how to make flower birthday cake decorations.

How to Make a Carnation Icing Flower
To make a carnation flower with icing you need royal icing of a stiff consistency and a disposable piping bag. Place a wax paper on your work table and pour the royal icing inside the piping bag. Attach a number 12 round decorating tip to the decorating bag and then pipe a small dot or ball on the waxing paper. Hold the piping bag at a ninety degree angle to the cake and pipe some stiff petals in the center of ball by using a wiggling up and down motion. Finish by piping some ruffled petals along the edge of the circle. Your carnation icing flower is ready and you can use it to adorn the birthday cake. Make several carnation icing flowers in different colors and place them on top of the birthday cake for a beautiful flower birthday cake.

How to Make Drop Flowers
Piping drop flowers is one of the easiest icing flowers techniques to master. To make drop flowers, you will need a piping bag and stiff buttercream icing. Hold the piping bag so that it is at a ninety degree angle to the cake. Now squeeze the top portion of the piping bag, with gentle pressure and pipe a bit of icing on the cake. When you have the desire drop flower size, lift the tip of the piping bag in one smooth motion. Attach a writing tip to the piping bag and pipe a small dot at the center of the drop flower. Use different colored buttercream icing to make small and medium-sized drop flowers to decorate the birthday cake.

How to Make a Rose Icing Flower
To make a rose icing flower you need frosting in pink color, a piping bag, rose tip, wax paper and a rose nail. Pipe a small amount of frosting on the rose nail and then place the wax paper over it. This will ensure that the wax paper does not move when you start the icing process. Hold the piping bag over the rose tip at a ninety degree angle and then using medium pressure, squeeze out a bit of frosting on the center of the waxing paper. Now rotate the rose pin as you steadily squeeze out icing in a swirling pattern. Squeeze the piping bag in an arc while rotating the rose pin in the other direction. Make three swirls in this way to make a small rose. The arcs should overlap each other so that they look like petals. Once this is done, make five more swirls over the first ones, making sure that the edges are angled inwards. Your rose is ready. Slide the rose nail off the wax paper and place the rose in the refrigerator to harden before using it to decorate the birthday cake.

These were three flower decorations made with icing and frosting that you can use for making a flower birthday cake. Flower birthday cakes can make anyone's birthday more special and fun.

Make The Perfect Chocolate Cake Frosting

Allow me to introduce you to my favorite recipe for the flourless chocolate cake.  It is the real thing.  No gluten.  No extra spices or flavorings.  No added sugar.  No extra ganache needed on top.  Just a fabulously rich, decadent chocolate cake that will leave you and your friends swooning.And the best part is….there are only THREE ingredients.

And after watching it disappear with a few groups of friends this weekend, I think it’s everyone’s kind of cake!

Ingredients:
    8 large eggs, cold
    1 lb. semisweet (or bittersweet) chocolate, coarsely chopped
    16 Tbsp. (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into 16 pieces
    optional toppings: powdered sugar and/or berries

Method:
Adjust an oven rack to the lower-middle position and heat the oven to 325 degrees.  Line the bottom of an 8-inch springform pan with parchment paper or waxed paper and grease the sides of the pan.  (Be sure to grease the sides really well!)  Wrap the outside of the pan with 2 sheets of heavy-duty aluminum foil and set it in a large roasting pan.  Bring a kettle or pot of water to boil.

In a stand mixer using the whisk attachment, beat the eggs at high speed until the volume doubles (about 5 minutes).

Meanwhile, melt the chocolate and butter together.  You can either do this on the stove (by placing the chocolate and butter in a large heatproof bowl set over a pan of almost-simmering water until smooth and very warm – about 115 degrees on an instant-read thermometer – stirring occasionally.

Or you can do this in the microwave (by heating the chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl at 50% power for 2 minutes, then stirring, the adding the butter, and continuing to heat at 50% power and stir in 1-minute intervals until the mixture is well-melted and smooth).  Then fold about a third of the beaten eggs into the chocolate mixture using a large rubber spatula until only a few streaks of egg are visible.  Fold in half of the remaining egg foam, and then the last half of the foam, until the mixture is totally homogenous.

Scrape the batter into the prepared springform pan and smooth the surface with a rubber spatula.  Place the roasting pan on the oven rack and pour in enough boiling water to come about halfway up the sides of the springform pan.  Bake until the cake has risen slightly, the edges are just beginning to set, a thin-glazed crust (like a rownie) has formed on the surgace, and an instant-read thermometer inserted halfway into the center reads 140° F, 22-25 minutes.

Remove the springform pan from the water bath and set on a wire rack; cool to room temperature.  Cover and refrigerate overnight to mellow and firm.  (The cake can be refrigerated for up to 4 days.)

About 3o minutes prior to serving, carefully remove the sides of the springform pan, invert the cake onto a sheet of waxed paper, peel off the parchment paper, and reinvert the cake onto a serving platter.  If desired, lightly dust the cake with powdered sugar and top with berries.  To slice, use a sharp, thin-bladed knife, dipping the knife into a pitcher of hot water and wiping the blade before each cut.