About

I have a confession to make. For years I have been making a chocolate cake that everybody raves over. Once I took it to a committee meeting and one of the committee members said it was absolutely the best chocolate cake he had ever tasted. Another time I took it to a party and people actually fought over the last slice. Without fail, whenever I serve it, somebody asks for the recipe. Well, the cake does contain some flavorful ingredients— Kahlua , sour cream, and almost a pound of chocolate. But, and here’s the confession, it begins with a mix. I’m prompted to let this skeleton out of my oven by the success of a series of books by Anne Byrn , “The Cake Mix Doctor.” Because of her, I’m now convinced that proper embellishment can make a cake mix taste as good as home made. Partly this is because cake mixes have come a long way since their introduction a little over fifty years ago. For example, in 1977, after noticing how many winners of its Bake-Off relied on pudding mix to enhance