We celebrated my son’s 3rd birthday over the weekend.  It wasn’t anything special, as I’m not that great of a party planner!  We just invited nana over, had a picnic and cake outside and opened presents.  I didn’t even make the cake from scratch (I can hear your sounds of disgust at that statement!).  I used Green’s Really Good Chocolate Cake mix and got a lovely, dense, chocolatey cake that I decorated with crushed Maltesers (the Australian version of Whoppers in the US).

The only odd thing about this cake is that the frosting that came with it was supposed to cover the top and sides of the cake.  I didn’t get that much frosting, so I could only frost the top.  It was really good though, it did live up to its name!  It didn’t leave a chemical taste in my mouth, as some people may claim that a Betty Crocker cake mix does.  A Green’s cake mix is quite different than a Betty Crocker mix in that it requires you add eggs, milk and butter, rather than eggs, water and oil, and the frosting mix that comes with the Green’s mix requires milk and butter.  The finished cake is also much more dense and heavy than a Betty Crocker cake, which is light and fluffy.

It was a nice little cake to end our picnic and it looked really cute with candles…

I’m not advocating box cake mixes and I certainly haven’t been contacted by Green’s to promote their cake mixes, I’m just saying that I think Green’s is the best brand when it comes to choosing a cake mix.  Another reason I chose Green’s is that they support Australia Zoo conservation projects (Australia Zoo is the home of Steve Irwin!).

I actually wanted the point of this post to be that a box cake mix doesn’t have to be nasty.  Choose the best brand – look for one that requires butter and milk instead of oil and water.  Embellish it with a handful of crushed Maltesers or Whoppers, even crushed chocolate-coated honeycomb would be excellent.  Then enjoy!

But then be sure to make up for the sin of buying a box cake mix by making a cake from scratch next time!  :D