Completely Transform Boxed Cake Mix With One Fizzy Ingredient
One of the benefits of boxed cake mixes is that they're quick to make and only require a few simple ingredients that you normally always have on hand. Typically, all you have to do is dump the dry ingredients package in a bowl with oil, eggs, and water and whisk them up together. But, if you want to make an upgraded boxed cake mix, there's a simple tweak you can make to this process –- swap the water the recipe calls for with soda.
Although this might sound like a strange substitution, it can be the key to making a lighter, fluffier cake with a more delicate crumb and a moister consistency. Besides creating a more aerated dessert, soda also imparts an extra pop of flavor to your treat. Whether that's the earthy, sweet sassafras flavor of root beer or the citrusy hint of 7Up, this can take a boxed chocolate or vanilla cake from good to great.
Why adding soda to your boxed cake mix works
It's not just chance that causes soda to lead to a more delicious dessert; the bubbles in your can of soda help the cake to rise by adding air bubbles to the mixture. At the same time, they interact with the leavening agents in the dry ingredients. In fact, you can actually make a two-ingredient soda cake, as that carbonation means you don't even need the usual eggs in your mixture. However, just swapping the water out and using the soda as well as the eggs can lead to an even fluffier, cakier dessert.
It's not just the soda's carbonation that helps your treat, however. Soda often contains high fructose corn syrup. This corn syrup provides better browning in your cake, and also adds moisture to the mixture. Plus, it gives your cake a boost of sweetness that can also lead to a tastier boxed cake.
Many types of soda, such as Sprite, include citric acid. This ingredient adds acidity to your cake, balancing the pH and making vanilla, lemon, chocolate, and other flavors more prominent. Citric acid also reacts with leavening agents, leading to more rise in your desserts. This helps give that airy, light texture that soda cakes are known for.
Choosing a soda to add to your cake
Before just pouring any can of soda into your cake mix, it's important to think about how the flavors of the drink and the dessert will mesh. For instance, a chocolate cake could benefit from the sweet, lightly spicy flavors of Dr. Pepper. Although Dr. Pepper's 23 flavors are a proprietary blend, there are notes of cloves and nutmeg, which deepen the natural flavors of chocolate in your cake. Another good choice for chocolate cake might be Coca-Cola. This beverage has similar nutmeg and vanilla flavors plus cinnamon, which can also complement the cocoa in your dessert.
If it's a vanilla cake you've got, this boxed mix flavor can serve as more of a blank canvas. Use 7Up in your cake to turn it into a lightly citrusy dessert, for instance. Another choice might be to use a fruity flavor, like with a blood orange soda cake. You could also ramp up the vanilla taste by mixing in cream soda, giving a boost of sweetness to your dessert and a touch of butterscotch flavor, too. Or, if you want a light and fluffy dessert without added flavor, you could use sparkling water as an ingredient swap for your boxed cake mix. Get creative and come up with soda and cake mix combinations that lead to a tasty marriage of unique flavors.