Remix

Two years ago, my friend Stephanie and I embarked upon a baking adventure (read about it here) where we attempted to make one Barefoot Contessa (Ina Garten) baked good a week. Our very first week we made Beatty's Chocolate Cake .

At that point in my life had never baked a cake from scratch before and to be honest, I didn't think it would be that different from a box mix- mostly because I was anticipating a complete disaster.

We somehow managed to bake Beatty's Chocolate Cake to perfection. It was the best cake I had ever tasted. The downside to it was that it took quite a bit more time than a box mix.

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Last week, thanks to grad school, I was running short on time. So for my friend Jalah's birthday cupcakes I cheated (sorry Jalah!).

I took a standard box mix of cake...I think I used Pillsbury's Devil's Food Cake... But instead of putting in 1 and 1/4 cups water that it called for, I put in 1 cup of freshly brewed coffee and 1/4 cup of water in hopes of bringing out the chocolate flavor.

I then whipped up a batch of chocolate buttercream frosting to go on top of it.

Overall they tasted pretty good. But I think one day this summer is going to be devoted to creating a bunch of my own box mixes of Beatty's Chocolate Cake, so I'm ready to roll at a moments notice. It really is THAT much better.