Best Ever Chocolate Fudge Layer Cake

I made this cake while my in-laws were here last week. My mother-in-law raved about, and even though it's stupid-easy (remember what I said about loving a box cake mix?), I'm going to post the recipe so she can have the recipe whenever she wants it. I got it out of a Kraft Food and Family magazine back in 2006, but have never made it before last week. We were craving chocolate, and I wanted something I could make fast!

1 pkg (2-layer size) chocolate cake mix
1 pkg (4 serving size) instant chocolate pudding mix
4 eggs
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup water
1 pkg (8 squares) Semi-sweet baking chocolate, divided (I didn't have squares, so I used chocolate chips. 1 square = 1 oz, so it 's about 3/4 of a bag of chocolate chips)
1 tub (8oz) cool whip, thawed

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease 2 9" round cake pans. Beat cake mix, dry pudding mix, eggs, sour cream, oil, and water in large bowl with an electric mixture on low speed until just moistened. Beat on medium speed 2 minutes or until well blended. Stir in 2 oz of the chocolate (chopped if you used the squares, or 2 oz of chocolate chips). Spoon into prepared pans.

Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until toothpick inserted near centers comes out clean. Cool in pans 10 minutes on wire rack. Loosen cakes from side of pans with spatula or knife. Invert cakes onto rack; gently remove pans. Cool completely.

Place remaining 6 oz chocolate and whipped topoping in medium microwavable bowl. Microwave on high 1 1/2 to 2 minutes. Stir until well blended and shiny. Cool five minutes. Place 1 cake layer on serving plate; spread 1/4 of the chocolate mix over cake. Place the second layer on top; spread remaining choclate mixture over top and sides of cake.

*I really liked the frosting on this cake. Very tasty and easy!

Mom's (and Wilton's) Buttercream Frosting

This is my favorite cake frosting, hands-down. The only thing my mom (and now I) do different that the original Wilton recipe does not call for is to add a pinch of salt. Somehow it helps balance out the sweetness.

1/2 cup solid vegetable shortening, softened
1/2 cup (1 stick) softened butter (use real butter, even though it's more expensive)
1 t vanilla (and if you're making white frosting, you can get clear vanilla at Michael's or Hobby Lobby so your frosting will stay ultra white, and also sub more shortening for butter and add butter flavoring - see directions below).
4 cups powdered sugar
2 T milk (or maybe a little more until you reach a good consistency, just add one tablespoon at a time)
a pinch of salt

(Medium Consistency)
In large bowl, cream shortening and butter with electric mixer. Add vanilla. Gradually add sugar, one cup at a time, beating well on medium speed. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl often. When all sugar has been mixed in, icing will appear dry. Add milk and beat at medium speed until light and fluffy. Keep bowl covered with a damp cloth until ready to use.

For best results, keep icing bowl in refrigerator when not in use. Refrigerated in an airtight container, this icing can be stored 2 weeks. Rewhip before using.

For thin (spreading) consistency icing, add 2 tablespoons light corn syrup, water or milk.

For Pure White Icing (stiff consistency), omit butter; substitute an additional 1/2 cup shortening for butter and add 1/2 teaspoon No-Color Butter Flavor. Add up to 4 tablespoons light corn syrup, water or milk to thin for icing cakes.

How to dress-up a boxed cake mix.

I love a cake mix. I make homemade red velvet cake batter, homemade pound cake batter, and maybe another kind of homemade batter if I'm following a certain recipe, but I love the convenience and even the taste of boxed cake mixes. Every year my mom makes me a funfetti cake with rainbow chip icing, and I love it. (And mom loves the easiness of it!)

One of the various cooking blogs I frequent had this great idea of how to doctor up a boxed cake mix to give it more of a "homemade" taste. It thickens up the batter. She lifted it off someone else's blog, who had lifted it off someone else's, so I really don't know who to give the credit too. But here it is anyway:

1 box cake mix
3 large eggs
1/2 c melted butter (1 stick)
1 c water

Mix ingredients on low for 1 minute, then on high for one minute. Bake according to package directions.

Cream Cheese Pound Cake

Throw out all your other pound cake recipes; you will never need another one. My friend, Rachel Grice, made this for me when I visited her once. It is in NO WAY good for you, but really, what pound cakes are? I didn't get a picture of this, mainly because it was GONE by the time I started thinking about getting one. I served it with strawberries and Cool Whip (convenience won out today. I love to make real whipped cream* when I have time). David's office is having a potluck breakfast on Friday and they asked me to make another one of these to send. For breakfast. Yeah, it's awesome. And easy. And I did it in my stoneware bundt pan which I had never used before, and it turned out fabulously. Slid right out of the pan with a perfect, golden crust. Love it.

Cream Cheese Pound Cake

2 sticks softened butter (I do not cook with margarine and I recommend you don't either. It's more expensive, but some things are worth the money. Real butter is one of those things.)
1 8 oz pkg softened cream cheese
1/2 c shortening
3 c sugar
6 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp butter extract
1 tsp almond extract
1 1/2 c all purpose flour
1 1/2 c self-rising flour

Beat the first three ingredients with an electric mixer until creamy. Beat in the sugar, one cup at a time. Beat in six (yep, I said six) eggs, one at a time. Beat in 1 t. vanilla, 1 t. butter extract, and 1 t. almond extract. Combine the two flours and gradually add to the beaten mixture. It will be a thick, stiff batter.

Grease and flour a tube pan or bundt pan. Pour the batter in and bake at 330 degrees (NOT 350 - bake at 330...it will keep the top from getting too brown) for about 1 hour and 20-30 minutes. Cool in pan for about ten minutes before moving to a cooling rack.

*My mom is the one who turned me on to real whipped cream. She pretty much never uses cool whip and taught me all the good tricks (like putting your metal bowl in the freezer for about fifteen minutes prior to beating the cream). It really does taste so much better than cool whip, and doesn't have all the hydrogenated junk that cool whip has, so when you can, make your own whip cream. But when you do have to use cool whip, a tip I learned from Sandra Lee on the Food Network is to add 1 tsp of vanilla to an 8 oz carton of cool whip to give it a homeade taste.