The Cake Mix Doctor

I absolutely have to share this cookbook - it's the best!  Especially if you love, or need, to bake cakes on a regular basis.  Ms. Anne Byrn has made it oh-so-easy to make extraordinary cakes using the basic cake mixes you pick up in the grocery store.  I have made probably about half the recipes in this book and now my daughter is cooking her way through the chocolate version of this fabulous cookbook.

One of my favorites is the Snickerdoodle Cake; it has graced many an erev Shabbat and festival table as well as the potluck dessert table over the years.  A beautiful layered cake, it always elicits oooohs and aaahhhhs.

Snickerdoodle Cake

1 package plain white cake mix
1 cup whole milk
8 T butter, melted
3 large eggs
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 tsp ground cinnamon

1.  Preheat oven to 350*.  Grease & flour two 9" baking pans

2.  Combine cake mix, milk, butter, eggs, vanilla and cinnamon in large mixing bowl.  Blend with an electric mixer on low speed for 1 minute.  Stop machine and scrape down the sides.  Increase mixer speed and beat 2 minutes more, scraping sides again, if needed.  The batter should look well combined.  Divide batter into the prepared pans, smoothing with rubber spatula.  Place pans in oven side by side.

3.  Bake cakes until golden brown and spring back to the touch, 27 - 29 minutes.  Remove pans and let cool 10 minutes.  Remove cakes from pans and cool completely on cake racks.  When cool, frost with Cinnamon Buttercream Frosting.

Cinnamon Buttercream Frosting

8 T butter at room temperature
3-3/4 cups powdered sugar (sifted)
3 - 4 T milk
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 tsp ground cinnamon

Cream butter in mixing bowl with electric mixer.  Add remaining ingredients and blend slowly until incorporated.  Then increase mixer speed to medium and beat until light and fluffy - about a minute more.  You can add a splash of milk if the frosting seems too stiff.

***

Like I said, my daughter is cooking her way through the chocolate version of this cookbook.  Every week she systematically makes the next cake, which is both good and bad.  Good in the fact that she is getting great experience baking and that her chocolate-loving father is being appeased with chocolate cake.  Bad in that I sometimes partake of this constantly available cake... !!  Good thing chocolate isn't an addiction of mine!

Being a seventeen year old young lady, Morgan is quite busy.  This week, she only had time to bake the actual cakes.  She left the cakes for me to frost in hopes that my weekend guests would enjoy some cake Shabbat afternoon (which they did!).  The cake was supposed to have chocolate frosting, however since I'm not much of a chocolate fan, I opted to tweak a frosting recipe from the first book to add to the rich, chocolate cake she had prepared.

Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

1 8 oz package cream cheese, room temperature
8 T butter, room temperature
3 cups powdered sugar, sifted
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
splash of milk

Combine cream cheese and butter together in a mixing bowl with electric mixer.  Add remaining ingredients and blend slowly until incorporated.  Then increase mixer speed to medium and beat until light and fluffy - about a minute or so.

Chocolate Snickerdoodle Cake
with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

Yeah, that was rich!  And pretty, too.