How to Make a Cake Mix Dense

Over the past few years, cake mix companies have made their products super moist. If you've ever made a cake from scratch though, you know that this is not what a homemade cake should be like. A homemade cake is dense and is also perfect for shaping into decorative sculptures. Does this mean you have to be make all your cakes from scratch to get the best results? Of course not. All you need to do is doctor your cake mixes to make them dense. Best of all, it doesn't require a lot of extra work or ingredients.

The first step is to decide what kind of cake you want to make. The reason this is an important step is that you will need to purchase an instant pudding mix that matches the flavor of your cake mix. You can find a pudding to match almost any flavor. For example, there are instant puddings available in lemon for lemon cake mixes. Some flavors require a bit of thinking. If you're unsure of what to pair with your cake mix remember that vanilla works with almost any flavor. It even adds a creamy background flavor to many varieties, such as strawberry or orange.

For a cake mix that makes a 9x13 inch cake or two 8 inches round cakes, you will need one 4 serving package of instant pudding, 4 eggs, 1 ¼ cups of water and 2 tablespoons of oil. I was originally instructed to use 1 tablespoon of oil, but found that the final product was too dry. You may want to play around with the amount of oil you use to get the texture and moisture you're looking for.

I suggest combining the cake mix and pudding before adding the wet ingredients to ensure that the pudding is evenly distributed. You can then add your wet ingredients and stir the ingredients together as normal. As for baking, some people recommend reducing the temperature to 250 degrees and baking the cake for one hour. Personally, I follow the package directions, but again, this is something you may want to play with. One note I will make is to ensure your pans are thoroughly greased. This batter is heavier and I found that mine stuck the first time after only a gentle spray of cooking spray.

Once the cake is done remove it from the oven and allow to cool in the pan for 15 minutes before transferring to a wire rack. Once the cake is completely cool, you can frost as normal or you can choose to shape your cake for more extravagant decorating.