Easter Eats

Whether you are having a large Easter feast or a small get-together after church we made some cakes that are sure to impress!

We took two basic cake mixes and added a few ingredients to make them shine!

Let's start with...

Jumbo Boerencake Mix with Speculaas and White Chocolate

Box Instructions and Our Additions:
1 package Jumbo Boerencake Mix
4 eggs
200 grams of butter or margarine, (3/4 Cup + 2 tbsp)
4 crushed Speculaas cookies (about 3/4 cup)
1 cup white chocolate chips
cake mold (28 cm), loaf pan or bunt pan
Preheat the oven  325°F (160 ° C)

• Put the butter in a mixing bowl and stir with the mixer at medium speed until creamy.
• Add the mix for Farmer's Cake and the eggs and beat for 4 minutes at a high speed to create an airy batter.
• Pour 1/3 batter into a greased cake tin.
• Add speculaas pieces then remaining batter.
• Baking: place the cake in the middle of your preheated oven and bake for 55-65 minutes.
• Allow the cake to cool 30 min then turn out cake from pan and continue to cool completely (1 hour).
• Melt white chocolate and pour over top and decorate with more speculaas chunks as desired.

In my bundt pan this cake took 55 min. 

This cake was super simple to make with very little additions to the box recipe! It would also be great with a caramel sauce!

The next cake...

Koopmans Fine Cake Mix with Lemon, Strawberry and Cream Cheese

Box Instructions and Our Additions:
1 package Koopmans Fine Cake Mix
150 g butter (2/3 cup)
50 ml milk (1/4 cup)
5 eggs (divided )
1/2 package cream cheese (room temp)
2 tbsp sugar
1 cup diced strawberries
1 tbsp lemon zest
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 cup icing sugar
1 cake mold 30 cm 
Oven temperature: 325 °F (160 ° C)
Baking time: 60-70 minutes

Directions:
• Place the rack slightly below the center of the oven and preheat the oven.
• Grease the cake tin.
• Using a mixer, beat 1 egg, the cream cheese and sugar until smooth; then transfer to a small bowl.
• In the mixing bowl, beat the butter until soft and creamy.
• Add the cake mix, milk and the 4 remaining eggs.
• Stir with the mixer on the lowest setting in 1 minute to a smooth batter.
• Beat the batter with the mixer on the highest setting in about 2 minutes to a light batter.
• Put 1/2 of the batter in the cake tin.
• Add the cream cheese mixture and strawberries, then add the remaining batter.
• Bake the cake for 60-70 minutes.
• Remove the cake from the mold and let the cake cool on an wire rack for an hour.
• Combine lemon juice and icing sugar then mix until smooth.
• Pour lemon icing over the cake and serve!

In my loaf pan this took the full 70 minutes. 

This cake was a bit more elaborate! The lemony undertones along with the strawberries added a great freshness. The cream cheese added some smooth richness! The cream cheese mixture sunk to the bottom during the baking process, but this didn't impact the delicious-ness.

The lemon in this cake was quite subtle and could easily be boosted to your taste. That being said, the Koopmans cake mix had great flavour and didn't need to rely on the extras.

I was pleasantly surprised by these two cake mixes! Both had great flavour and were easy to make. The structure of the two cakes were different. You can see it in the picture above that the Jumbo Boerencake has a looser crumb while the Koopmans Fine Cake was much finer (I guess it was named correctly!). You can choose for yourself whether you prefer a looser, airy texture; or a fuller, spongy texture. Neither will disappoint!