Turning Vanilla Cake Into Chocolate

[floridanative]

I bought some Dowd & Rogers dark vanilla cake mix. I wanted chocolate but they were out of it. Well I made cupcakes out of one box and though it has a great texture, there is some flavor in it I don't like - not the vanilla but some flour that's in it. The odd taste is faint so I think chocolate would overpower it which would be great. Is there a way to add cocoa to the mix and make the next cake chocolate? If not, I'll add choc. chips which would help I'm sure.

[Guest nini]

yep you can add cocoa to the cake... make sure you use enough cocoa that it's chocolatey enough! Also, you could add in chocolate chips to it as well to make it extra chocolatey... I've done that before with a basic white cake recipe I made from scratch, made it chocolate and mmmmmm it was good... I can't remember how much cocoa I added but it was a lot! At least a cup or more...

[eKatherine]

For a stronger flavor you might want to add melted unsweetened chocolate to the batter. If you add much cocoa without cutting back on the flour (which you can't do in a mix) it will make a dryer cake.

[Ursa Major]

If you add a lot of cocoa, you can add another egg and more water and oil, to make it more liquid again. But if you do all that, why not make it from scratch to begin with? I find that making cake from scratch is almost as easy as using a mix, and you actually know exactly what's in it.

[Green12]

I bought some Dowd & Rogers dark vanilla cake mix. I wanted chocolate but they were out of it. Well I made cupcakes out of one box and though it has a great texture, there is some flavor in it I don't like - not the vanilla but some flour that's in it. The odd taste is faint so I think chocolate would overpower it which would be great. Is there a way to add cocoa to the mix and make the next cake chocolate? If not, I'll add choc. chips which would help I'm sure.

If I am not mistaken, the Dowd & Rogers brand of cake mixes use chestnut flour, so it might be the chestnut flour that is not agreeing with your tastebuds.

[floridanative]

The box of cake mix I still have cost me $6 plus frt. so I'm going to use it. I didn't even cook before going gluten free so I'm not quite ready for baking from scratch - to say the least.

Nope Juliem- I don't think it's the chestnut flour because the taste I don't like is in kinickinnick bread and in Namaste vanilla cake (which was so bad I threw the whole cake out). I think the chestnut flour actually masks the taste I don't like. I know whatever I don't like is not in 123GF pan bars or brownies, or in Breads from Anna bread. I'll figure what it is out eventually.

Thanks for the tips everyone!

[Green12]

Nope Juliem- I don't think it's the chestnut flour because the taste I don't like is in kinickinnick bread and in Namaste vanilla cake (which was so bad I threw the whole cake out). I think the chestnut flour actually masks the taste I don't like. I know whatever I don't like is not in 123GF pan bars or brownies, or in Breads from Anna bread. I'll figure what it is out eventually.

Thanks for the tips everyone!

Here are the ingredients for both cake mixes-

Dowd & Rogers Dark Vanilla Cake Mix Ingredients: Pure Cane Sugar, Gourmet Flour Blend (Fine White Rice Flour, Italian Chestnut Flour, Tapioca Flour), Cultured Buttermilk, Pure Vanilla Powder, Aluminum Free Baking Powder, Salt, Xanthan Gum, Baking Soda.

Namaste Vanilla Cake Mix Ingredients: evaporated cane juice, sweet rice flour, tapioca flour, arrowroot flour, rice milk powder, baking soda, cream of tartar, salt, vanilla, xanthan gum(certified by manufacturer as corn free).

The common ingredients are tapioca flour, vanilla, and xanthum gum.

Could it be something youare adding to the mixes, like your oils or eggs?

[Fiddle-Faddle]

baking soda and baking powder actually have a less-than-delicious taste--kind of salty and tinny.

You could also add vanilla extract, or almond extract and a little bit of chopped nuts or nut butter.

[floridanative]

I kind of think it may be the tapioca flour I don't like but that's in everything. It seems as long as there is another flavor added, it doesn't bother me. For my cake mix I decided to make chocolate chip/coconut muffins. I need to serve them at my support group meeting Sat. and many there have issues with nuts so I can't add them. If they were just for me I'd add a ton of pecans too......yum! Thanks juliem for listing the ingredients. You just confirmed my suspicion about the tap. flour.

[floridanative]

Okay I made more muffins with the vanilla mix and they turned out great! I would call them cupcakes but they don't need frosting now. I added about a 3/4 cup of choc chips and 1/2 cups of sweetened coconut. I only ate one of them while still hot and it was scrumptious. The icky flavor was really no where to be found which is just what I was hoping for. Thanks again for the tips and though I was out of vanilla extract, I'd add a tiny bit of that next time too. I think the chestnut flour is what gives this mix such a great texture.