Now You're Baking! Cake Mixes - Just Add Fruit

Now that we're going to use the oven, here are some baking rules:

Always heat the oven to the baking temperature in the recipe BEFORE putting any food in. This is called preheating. As one commenter reminded me, always look in the oven to make sure it's empty BEFORE turning it on to preheat! It makes waaay too handy a storage place for extra pans, food, even dishes. Once it was an Easter egg hiding place for a candy-filled plastic egg that was found, not by the children, but when the oven was turned on!

Always use pot holders or oven mitts.

Using a mitt, pull the oven rack partially out, set the pan on it to bake, then gently slide the rack back into the oven.

Don't reach into the oven for the pan when the food is done. Pull the rack out part way before lifting the hot food out.

Know where you're going to set the hot pan before you take it out of the oven. Have a rack or a hot pad or oven mitt lying on the counter next to the stove to put it on. Don't carry a hot pan across the kitchen until it has cooled some.

Always set a timer right after you close the oven door. The best kind beeps for a whole minute instead of just one 'ding'. Set it for the shortest time given in the recipe and check for doneness.
If you have to leave the kitchen, stay nearby or take the timer with you. The smoke alarm is not a good timer!

An amazing 2-ingredient cake.

Click photo to enlarge recipe)

This tastes like regular angel cake to us, with just the tiniest hint of pineapple.

We also tried a recipe with an angel food cake mix and a can of lemon pie filling, but we both decided it tasted like Lemon Pledge spray wax. Maybe it was the brand of filling we used. You can try it if you like a *really* strong lemon taste!

Now for two 3-ingredient recipes!

Grampy says this is the best chocolate cake he's eaten since his Aunt Margaret's, during his boyhood summer visits to his Uncle Ashley's farm in West Paris, Maine.

(click to enlarge)

The cherry color couldn't be seen in a chocolate cake, but white cake turns pink and tastes great.

(Click on the photo to read the recipe better)

The little white flecks are part of the cake mix. They wouldn't show up if the cake was white.

This is such a pretty color.