The Cake Mix Doctor

The first book of the Cake Mix Doctor series, it is packed with 150 recipes for doctoring up packaged cake mix with fresh ingredients from your kitchen. It also includes easy homemade frostings. I give the history of the American cake mix and why I wrote this book. In between recipes are bits of trivia about cake baking and loads of tips for baking better cakes. And inside the front cover is a photo display of every cake in the book, listing the page number, so you can choose the photo you like best then turn to the recipe to start baking. USA Today called this the best-selling cookbook of 2000. Also on the New York Times Best Seller list.

Most popular recipes: Fresh Banana Cake with Quick Caramel Frosting, Darn Good Chocolate Cake, Tripe Decker Strawberry Cake, Snickerdoodle Cake, Stacy’s Chocolate Chip Cake, and Almond Cream Cheese Pound Cake. You can’t go wrong. It all began here.

Why I wrote this book: I was a busy mom with three young children. Even though I was a from-scratch cook, I was short on time and had loads of children’s parties, events, and commitments, and not much time to cook. So I picked up a box of chocolate cake mix from the supermarket, added sour cream and a little more vanilla, and after the cake baked poured over my mom’s chocolate pan frosting. You never knew the cake came from a box! I shared that recipe and others in a newspaper food column and then developed many more great recipes for this book.

Favorite cooking tip in the book: Make homemade frosting. My mother always said you can get away with a cake mix cake, but you must make frosting from scratch.