Your Boxed Cake Will Taste Homemade With One Simple Addition

Whether you're short on time or just craving a quick and easy dessert, boxed cake can be a saving grace. Let's be real, it's saved us all at least once after suddenly remembering that we have dinner guests that evening. While you can always add pudding mix to make your boxed cake moist, there's one simple way to make your cake look as well as taste more homemade: Make your frosting from scratch. Frosting is an essential element of any good cake, and if you get this part right, it'll be easy to forget you're using a boxed mix.

While whipping canned frosting helps it taste more homemade, actually making it yourself will instantly upgrade the quality and taste of your cake. And depending on what type you make, it might only take a few minutes and just a handful of ingredients to create something truly delicious.

Making your own frosting means that you can do way more in terms of customization, too. You can change the sweetness, add in different flavors, and get the right texture. Although there are some good quality store-bought frostings out there, some also contain plenty of unnecessary ingredients, which you can also avoid by simply making your own. 

Cake frosting can come in the form of buttercream, whipped cream, ganache, or glaze, depending on what kind of cake you're baking — so it's important to pick the best frosting match for your boxed mix. If you're making any of the popular flavors like vanilla, chocolate, or lemon cake, a buttercream will do your cake wonders. A simple buttercream only really requires butter and sugar, but you can tweak the flavors to suit the cake, like adding vanilla essence, cocoa powder, or lemon juice. 

If you know your boxed cake is quite sweet, whipped cream frosting is buttercream's lighter friend. For a boxed strawberry cake or similar, you can even mix in some fresh berries to the whipped cream before decorating it for an elegant finish. Or for those that want to double down on the cake's richness, making an easy chocolate ganache is your answer. A ganache is usually made from melted chocolate and heavy cream, making it quite decadent. But if you love rich flavors, it's perfect for a chocolate, caramel, or coffee flavored cake. 

If you just want a super-simple frosting that still elevates your cake, a glaze made with sugar and a liquid such as milk or water ticks all the boxes. This can go on pretty much any boxed cake like yellow, vanilla, or pound cake. You can also add flavorful variations onto the glazed cake before it hardens, like toasted nuts, cinnamon sugar, or sprinkles, which also provide a great textural contrast. Just remember to let your boxed cake cool before adding any of these frostings — things could definitely get messy otherwise.