How to Make a Box Cake Taste Homemade

I love to bake. And if you are like me, you rarely have time to bake. Or maybe you are also like me in the aspect that I can be quite lazy on occasion. My laziness loves the idea of boxed cakes. Just add a little of this and a little of that, and then voila a cake! But the true problem is, boxed cakes really can't compare to those homemade, made from scratch cakes that Grandma makes. My Grandma has ruined me forever, because her cakes are simply the best thing you could ever imagine. So there is where my problem lies: a woman with a refined palate who has a major tendency to be a lazy baker. In order to compensate for my laziness I have found a few things to change in Betty Crocker's classic recipe that make that box cake taste like it could ALMOST be as good as Grandma's. But of course, no cake will ever be as good as Grandma's. So if you are like me and your cute Grandma has ruined all other cakes for you, you are in the right place.

Here she is: the woman who ruined all other cakes for me, plus a cake.

Warning: This is not a blog post to tell you a healthier way to make a cake. I will use fattening ingredients with no qualms. This is why I am fat. Fattening ingredients > Healthy alternatives. Fattening = a better, more delicious cake.

Step One:

Take a look at this Betty Crocker recipe on the back of your boxed cake from the grocery store.

Now that you've seen it forget everything. Betty Crocker has lied to you. I have much better ingredients for you! 

Step Two:

First take Betty Crocker's dry mix from your box and pour it into a bowl. Now instead of water, you are going to use milk. Use whatever milk you most prefer: whole, 1%, almond, cashew, coconut, soy. Your possibilities are endless. I prefer Blue Diamond brand's Almond Coconut Milk. It adds a bit of a nutty flavor to your mix. I like to use the sweetened milk over the unsweetened. (Note: I will always choose sweetened over unsweetened. This is why I am fat.) Pour yourself 1 cup of the milk of choice and put it in the cake mix.

Step Three:

Now the so-called know-it-all Betty Crocker will tell you to use vegetable oil. I am here to tell you she is telling you wrong. The best thing to do is switch out that oil for BUTTER. (Note: butter is always better. This is another reason I am fat.) Melt the butter until it is fully liquidizes into 1/2 cup. Then proceed to pour it in the cake mix.

 Step Four:

The box will tell you 3 eggs are the ideal. I am here to tell you 4 eggs are ideal. The extra egg will add more texture and structure to your cake, as well as help with cake height. This will also make your cake even more moist--because no one likes a dry cake. My Grandma will also be happy to know that I would use an even number of eggs in my recipe. She does not like odd numbers.

Step Five:

Betty Crocker is not even helpful enough to put this step on the recipe. Seriously, who put this woman in charge?! (Disclaimer: I love Betty Crocker. All hail Betty Crocker.) Now you will put a teaspoon of vanilla in your cake mixture. And if you are an "overachiever" like me, you will also add a splash of pure almond extract. These things will add that extra vanilla and nutty warmth to the batter.

Conclusion:

Now here ends all my all-knowing cake ingredient swap-outs. I now leave you back in the loving hands of Betty Crocker and her remaining box cake instructions. I will just tell you to always beat your batter longer than you think is appropriate. You can never over-beat your batter. And when it comes to greasing your pan, I am always an advocate of using Crisco--because as I warned you earlier, unhealthy always equals better in my book.

So now you can make a cake from a box, that will astound your friends and family when you tell them that it was in fact A BOX CAKE! Gasp. Or why even tell them? Keep it a secret, everyone will think you spent hours and hours making a cake from scratch. You are now known as the cake making extraordinaire. Congratulations to you.

Soundtrack to my Finals

It is finals week. Which means I am solely depending on food and music to keep me from possibly dying. This week's soundtrack consists of.

Bob Dylan


Bob Dylan


Bob Dylan

This guy is keeping me sane.

Enchanted Yet Melancholy

With finals creeping up on me in less than two weeks, today I decided to take a much needed break and take the long way home (more correctly, I walked and didn't take the bus for once). They've just planted loads of new flowers on campus and it looks gorgeous! That kind of beauty almost makes my impending stress bearable!

On my way home I cut through the cemetery across from my apartment complex. I don't know why, and I hope this doesn't make me sound creepy, but I absolutely love walking through cemeteries. I am so fascinated by cemeteries. They give me this enchanted yet melancholy feeling. Being surrounded by these memories of so many past lives, and yet you don't know anything about them but the dates and names on their tombstones. It's a rather somber feeling to find those tombstones that say nothing more than a simple first name, or tritely state only the birth and death date with no name at all. I'm left wondering about those people who are buried with nothing more than their name, or nothing more than mother written on their tombstone. What kind of life did their lead? What kind of legacy did they leave behind? There are so many stories and adventures hanging in the air just out of my reach. I guess I love cemeteries because I am quite an enthusiast for ambiguity.

Sweet Taste of Freedom

Nothing is quite as sweet as that feeling of freedom that comes with the end of a school year; feeling that sense of accomplishment after working hard for months and months. Today I finished my last final, and it is the best feeling in the world. I have worked like crazy this semester. More than just a couple of all nighters were pulled. I have learned a ton, and written oogles of papers. At this point a nice summer is very much needed.

Although this sense of freedom is truly wonderful, I cannot even begin to say how much I am going to miss my roommates. This year has been far and away my favorite year of college. I have had such great roommates who stay up late with me, and love me for the absolutely insane person that I am. One of my favorite quotes from the tv show Freaks and Geeks is when Sam says, "Why do I need more friends, I already have two." But I can much relate to him. This year with just my perfect three roommates and my BFF Cody who lives upstairs, I have more friendship than any person could even hope for. I am going to miss living with all of them so much. I am going to miss staying up late watching super awesome movies with Amanda. I am going to miss late night talks with Beth as we lay on our bunk bed. I am going to miss making up crazy schemes with BreAuna late into the night. I am going to miss doing karaoke with Cody, or coming up with fictional stories of my Russian alter ego. I am especially going to miss Beth, who is going to leave me for 18 months to serve her mission in Japan, and BreAuna who is going to do work study at Disney World. Luckily next year I will still have Amanda and Cody to party with.

Even though I am so sad for this year with my roommates to end, I am so excited for this new summer to start so I can teach cute little munchkins to swim for my job.

I present to you the face of freedom-

Missing my Ireland

I am really missing my I.I. this week! It has been almost a month since I have seen her! I am having serious withdrawls. She is my favorite little buddy. I really cannot wait for this week to be over so I can have all summer to play with her! I mean just look at this cute girly, how could you not love her to pieces. No little person has quite been able to steal my heart like she has mine.

Finals Week Has Arrived!

Bridge Over Troubled Water

I don't know if any of you have felt heart break before, and I mean feeling that something that really just makes you ache and mourn down to your very soul. But recently I have gone through some real hard moments in my life. None of it due to romantic heartbreak but something entirely different. In the past few months my parents have split up and are due to divorce. Coming as a shock to me, who I guess naively suspected nothing, everything felt like it was coming tumbling down all around me. It is hard to try and emotionally have a handle on something you have absolutely no control over. I felt helpless, and had a really hard time connecting with the people around me for a while: my family and friends. You see these kind of things happen on tv or to other people and you never think it could happen to you, but when it does it never turns out as you imagine it could. Even though it was my parents splitting, I felt deep and penetrating heartbreak. All your life you imagine a certain kind of future for yourself and your family, and all the sudden everything has completely changed course.

For months I have been in a bad place, but recently I have been turning a new leaf. Even though there are things greatly out of my control, I have been taking this time of heartbreak to renew myself and take a time for self reflection and discovery. It is in our hardest times that we can discover how strong we actually can be. In these passed months I have discovered that I am a strong young woman with a lot of greatness ahead of me. I have made new dreams for myself, and learned to look forward with positivity and optimism. With Paul Simon as my emotional guide I have started to heal and callus my wounds. I have never so much felt the healing power that music can give until listening to the beautiful lyrics of Paul Simon while I was down. The man is a genius, and I infinitely owe him. Good music really heals down to the soul. Heartbreak is only temporary, and happiness can last a lifetime. I just needed to break through trial to discover the happiness that can be gained.

Life throws us curve balls, we just need to learn to outsmart it and learn to hit the ball right on.

Native American Literature

This semester I have taken a course that I have completely fallen in love with, Native American Literature. Before taking this class I didn't really think too much about their being a whole separate genre for Native literature, but as I have been engrossing myself in these novels I have come to realize that Native writers do in fact have this beautiful and unique style of writing that I have not had the pleasure of reading in any other books. The books I have read have such a strong sense of identity and what it means to be apart of something, the Native culture. And being the English major I am, I love to devour symbolism, trying to find the meaning hidden in simple things. These books are chalk full of that like no other genre I have read. So to you I suggest, if you have not already, to find a Native American novel and you will be pleasantly surprised as you read and open your mind to a beautiful culture.

Books I suggest:

Love Medicine, by Louise Erdrich.

Winter in the Blood, by James Welch

Ceremony, by Leslie Marmon Silko

Bone Game, by Louis Owens

If you feel so inclined, pick up one of these books, and you will not regret it.

How Time Flies

Man oh man! This school year has been absolute insanity! As you can see, since I haven't posted in however many months. But despite the insanity, I have been having the time of my life. In the past months I have made new friends, discovered new and exciting things, felt heartbreak, and studied so hard I thought my brain would deflate. It really is amazing when you look back on your life and can see when you have grown the most as a person, and for me, this year has been one of those times. In just one year I feel like I have grown into a completely new person. It never ceases to amaze me how in such little time life can be incredibly changed. Within just few month span so much has changed, some good, some bad. I have discovered that music has an intense affect, and can feel as if it is sinking into your soul and searching through your life to bring you peace. I guess that Paul Simon and Bob Dylan can have that effect on a person. I have found that a really good movie can help you to leave behind that world and feel complete elation from that cinematic brilliance. And a book, you know that book, that very special one that you read and find your life changed, can give you a new outlook on life and feel as if that characters in it have become some of your very best friends. When you are going through turmoil in your life, and feel that you are beyond turning to someone, I have found that these things can help you and change you for the better. Music, movies, and books have a unique power that can bring you peace and change you in ways you never thought could be possible. When you find that life around you is changing and completely beyond your control, you can take hold of your own life and mold yourself into the person you want to be. Some things can spin out of control and you have to sit helpless and sit and watch it burn, but when it comes to yourself and who you are, that is always powered by your own hand.

Boy Summer is Busy!

This summer has seriously been crazy busy! Which rightly explains why I haven't had any time to blog! One would think that summer time would be the time to lay about and relax, but in reality summer is always the busiest for me, especially this summer. In May I got my Water Safety Instructor certification, so for the summer I have been teaching swimming lessons at the Farmington Pool. I have been aiding lessons for the past three years, but this year I took the leap and got certified to teach the lessons myself. It has been a lot of work, but the kids make it so rewarding. I get to teach the littler classes, so my ears are filled with the crazy funny stuff they say everyday! On top of teaching lessons I have also been teaching Water Aerobics. Getting paid to work out, doesn't get much better then that! I am seriously in love with Water Aerobics. You get a work out without feeling sweaty and hot. It's great! I highly recommend it! I am also doing Office Staff at the pool for my fourth year. So I am basically doing every kind of job at the pool except lifeguarding haha. This job is seriously the greatest summer job around! Getting paid to swim, and being able to come and swim whenever I want for free. Nothing better!

Feeling Classy

For the past month I haven't been wearing makeup so my eyelids could get back to normal, and today for the first time in what has felt like quite a while I wore makeup. Today I actually spent time on my hair and I wore makeup! I feel quite accomplished! And I am looking the classiest I have in about a month haha. Good thing I got all dressed up for the day so I can look super fancy for my day of intensive studying! But in all seriousness, it is nice to have my face back to normal again. Greatest feeling in the world!

College: Year One

I guess I have kind of been neglecting my poor blog this month. That's what working a part time job and going to school full time will do to you haha. But seriously this semester has been the busiest of my life. I don't think I have ever worked so hard before, but I love it. Although exhausting, and lacking in a social life, these past few months have been some of the most fulfilling of my life. I have learned to support myself financially, with hardly any help, I feel like I am really on my way to being a full blown adult haha. I really have bittersweet feelings about moving back home for the summer next week. I am so excited to go home and see all of my friends and family, but I am really sad to leave behind the many friends, especially my spectacular roommates, that I have up here. This has been one of the biggest years of my life, and I am really sad for it all to end. I look back to the time at the beginning of the year when I was sad and scared about being away from home, and now in completely different shoes I am sad to leave this place that once had me frightened out of my wits. College really is one of the best experiences of my life, and I can say whole-heartedly that my first year was phenomenal. I definitely look forward to coming back in the fall. But in the meantime I will enjoy going home to my friends and family and soaking up some summer sun!

My Name is Danielle, and I am a Pinterest Addict

After months of denial, I finally have to announce that I have a bad case of Pinterest addiction. It is bad! Multiple times a day I get on and make pin after pin. I've got a problem, friends. And the thing is, I don't think I want to stop. This extraordinary website has sucked me into its black hole of recipes, fashion, books, and the most addicting of all, movies and celebrities. How can I resist going and looking at shirtless pictures of Ryan Gosling, or saucy pictures of Josh Hutcherson in black vintage glasses. Curse you, my weakness for attractive men in glasses! Pinterest has targeted all of my obsessions and put them all into one place. It's like the person who invented Pinterest was like, "Oh, how about I make this website so that Danielle will never get anything done ever again." Pretty sure that is an accurate description. So there, now that I have admitted by daily folly I can start going forth in a step process to recovery. But then again, Jason Segel posing with a fish bowl...I don't stand a chance.

Give the Piano Man His Song!

The other day at work the song Piano Man came onto the radio. And of course, me being the enormous Billy Joel fan that I am, was singing along word for word. When it came to the time when he sings about John at the bar, it cut out an entire section of the song! It was like John at the bar is a friend of mine...then cut to the chorus. How are people supposed to know he wants to be a movie star, I ask you?? Come on Kool 103.9, just play the whole song! I mean, you play the entirety of American Pie, you can play the entirety of Piano Man. I am pretty sure that Billy Joel has risen to the point in his career that you shouldn't go cut off his most quintessential song. I mean listen to the his song he wrote at the beginning of his career, The Entertainer. "It was a beautiful song, but it ran too long. If you're gonna have a hit, you've gotta make it fit. So they cut it down to 3:05." Yep, he was talking about Piano Man. And apparently Kool 103.9 is stuck in the seventies, because every other radio channel plays the entire song now. Geez. Well there is my rant....now you can adequately know how crazy I am haha (if you hadn't already caught on that is.)

Feeling Very Argentine

Last night Keiana and I had some boys over who had served their missions in Argentina, and they introduced us to a drink called mate. It is this mixture of dried chopped herbs that you put in this metal cup with a leather outside, and a silver straw with teeny tiny little holes on the bottom to suck up the water. You put a spoon full of sugar on top of the herbs and then poor hot water into the mixture and then sip it out through the fancy straw. And then you basically just keep continually keep doing this until everyone has drank the flavor out of it. It was quite good, and it was a fun little activity to get to know people and I was able to find out quite a bit about the Argentine culture.

But the thing is, when you have about five cup fulls of this thing, with a spoon full of sugar per helping, you get quite a sugar rush! Keiana and I literally could not calm ourselves down enough to go to sleep until about 2:00 in the morning! Now, Keiana and I are both probably crazy out of our minds on our own, but when you get the two of us hyper at the same time, you've got trouble. Needless to say we were pretty dang funny at 2:00 in the morning, we for sure got some good quotes on our quote board haha.

Yes, Danielle, We Know You Love Boy Meets World!

What? Danielle is doing a Boy Meets World blog post AGAIN??
Yes. Yes I am. I have said it before and I will say it again. Boy Meets World is by and far my favorite show of all time! So much so that I find small moments of my life each day in which I use quotes from it.

Exhibit A:
Everyday when I go to put my underwear on, I go into my underwear drawer and say, "UNDERPANTS!" like Cory Matthews.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXFLpND4Q_g

Exhibit B:
The other day when I was blowing my nose, I randomly quoted Mr. Turner when he tells Cory, "What if one day you rose your hand in class and I said, 'What do you want Booger?!'"

Exhibit C:
When I go to get my cereal in the morning I quote Cory Matthews and say, "There's no such thing as good news until I've had my Grape Nuts." But instead of Grape Nuts I usually say Cheerios.

Exhibit D:
Sometimes I will just start yelling the Feeny call to myself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-BB-Xk9xYY

So there are just a few ways in which my life will never be the same thanks to Boy Meets World. Maybe I am a bit obsessed.

Going Au Naturale

So for the past...forever...I have been struggling with having intensely dry, itchy, swollen, and bright red eyelids. I have basically tried every moisturizer known to man, and tried every method that I found that could possible help me. Some days I would wake up and my eyes would be so swollen and red that I was quite positive that I was probably Quasi Modo's twin. Or another morning when my eyelids are so incredibly fiery red that I told Gavin that I looked like a raccoon if they had red around their eyes instead. This week it finally got to the point where I finally broke down and saw a doctor. Unfortunately there is no real diagnosis for it, all I can do is be incredibly careful about what products I use. And one of the products the doctor told me not to use was my makeup! Heaven knows I love to put on makeup, and you know I don't put on like a ton, I just think it is fun to put on and I enjoy wearing it. But all this week I have been completely out of my comfort zone and have been hitting the town everyday with my face au naturale. After trying this out, I have decided that every girl should try this out every once and a while. Nowadays we all depend so much on makeup and artificial beauty and hardly ever simply give the original palette that God gave us a try. It is kind of this awesome confidence booster, that initially saves you a lot of time, because I never realized how much time I spend putting on my makeup until I wasn't putting it on anymore. And I have already noticed a difference in my eyelids, and honestly if maybe looking like a bum to the rest of the world will take me out of misery I will gladly oblige. And in the meantime I will enjoy the glorious free time I have gained in the mornings.

No more puffy redness!! And no more makeup.

It's Time to Light the Lights! It's Time to Meet The Muppets!

For my entire life I have been an avid Muppet fan! I just love those cute little puppets! My brother and I share this special Muppet bond, in which we watch Muppet movies and The Muppet Show together all of the time, so it was only natural that we have completely fallen in love with their newest film, The Muppets! I feel like everyone has mixed feelings about this movie, so let me just tell you why it is so wonderful!

First off, Jason Segel. He wrote it, he stars in it, he sings and dances, and he will someday be my husband. Really, what other reason do you need? But I will tell you anyways. I love that this movie is not just the Muppets acting out another existing story like Treasure Island and A Christmas Carol (which of course are wonderful as well), but this movie is in fact about the Muppets themselves and their real to life struggles and stories (because we all know that Muppets are real, right?). There is some serious character development in this film. And for a person who loves and watches the original Muppet Show, it is fantastic! Long forgotten Muppets are brought back to life, like Lew, or the Pigs in Space! And how can you pass up the truly phenomenal musical numbers??? "Life's a Happy Song" and of course the OSCAR WINNING number, "Man or Muppet." Oh, and the humor! Totally cheeseball, and I absolutely devour it up! Like, I literally just belly laugh through the whole movie! And the tenderness! There are some seriously tender moments in this movie! And if all of this does not convince you, just read this lovely quote...

“As long as there were singing frogs and joking bears, Swedish chefs and boomerang fish, the world can’t be that bad of a place after all.”
-Walter

See, don't you just want to watch and fall in love with this lovely movie???

Read more here: http://sloblogs.thetribunenews.com/shelikestowatch/2011/11/28/meet-the-muppets/#storylink=cpy

The Splendor of Weekends at Home

After months of having to work every weekend, I have had the pleasure of being able to have the last not one, but three weekends off of work! And it has been stupendous. I have been able to spend some much needed quality time with the fam. Some highlight of my past few weekends include having a birthday girls night for my Mamma with my Grammy, Aunt Becca, and my cousins, Ireland and Bentley. I brought some delicious Blimpie sandwiches, and made a plethora of treats, including Muddy Buddies and Lunchlady Peanut Butter bars. Can you say YUM?! And then we watched Footloose, although we did not necessarily get much movie watching done, because it is honestly much more fun to watch the baby, Ireland, to dance around the room to the music of the movie!

In my family March is a big birthday month for us. Including both sides of the family we have seven birthdays. So that means a lot of parties, and my particular favorite...cake! On my mom's side of the family we have a specific birthday delicacy, Red Velvet Cake. You have not had Red Velvet Cake until you have tasted my Grammy's. There is nothing quite as heavenly on the entire face of the earth. And with all of the birthdays we have in March, we get quite a lot of this deliciousness in this particular month.


And how can I not mention the highlight of my last weekend...THE HUNGER GAMES!!! I have been a Hunger Games lover for a very long time, and therefore have been looking forward to this movie for quite a while. Like, I would check the casting on IMDB daily to see who was the most recently person cast, that is how crazy I am. I love these books so much, so much so that they are almost up there with Harry Potter, and heaven knows how much I love my HP! So I really wanted this movie to be good. I bought midnight showing tickets for myself, my parents, and my brother at the new Farmington Cinemark, and I bought an incredibly epic Hunger Games shirt on Amazon, and then I was set! Then came the time when I actually went to the movie. Once the movie started, I literally had a hard time containing myself, and that lasted pretty much throughout the entire movie. I sat in this state of constant excitement for over two hours, it was glorious. The movie as I suspected was perfectly cast, and everything exceeded my expectations. It was one of the first movie adaptations of a book that everything was basically how I imagined it in the books! It was nothing less than spectacular!

Well there are some highlights of my last few weekends, which have been absolutely splendid. I really missed being with my family, and the past few weeks have really been a godsend. Just two more weeks and I can go home two days for Easter, and then in five weeks I can go home for the summer!

My Britishness is Flaring Up Again

It is finally Spring Break, hallelujah! Since I have to work all week I am staying up in Logan, and therefore have the apartment all to myself. I could walk around naked if I want to! But on this my first night of sweet solitude I have opted to read Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason in nothing but my silk robe, while drinking a cup of herbal tea (caffeine free of course.) I feel quite British and Bridget Jones-esque yet again tonight. And I love it! May I also point out how charming and pretty my new vintage teacup is that I bought at an antique shop this weekend!