Graham Streusel Cake

2 cups graham cracker crumbs
¾ cup chopped walnuts
¾ cup brown sugar
1 ¼ teaspoon cinnamon
½ cup margarine, melted
1 package cake mix (any flavor)
1 cup water
1/3 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs

Heat oven to 350. Grease a 13 x 9 pan. Mix together the cracker crumbs, nuts, brown sugar, cinnamon, and margarine; reserve. Beat cake mix, water, oil, and eggs in a large bowl according to box directions. Pour about 2 1/3 cups batter into pan; sprinkle with about 2 cups crumb mixture. Pour remaining batter into pan; spring with remaining crumb mixture. Bake until cake springs back with touched lightly in center, 40-45 minutes. Cool. Drizzle with powdered sugar glaze of 1 cup powdered sugar and 2 tablespoons water.

My notes: This tastes awesome with a Butter Pecan Cake Mix! If I use nuts I usually use 1 cup of chopped walnuts instead of 3/4 cup. For the glaze I start with 1 cup powdered sugar and add one tablespoon of water. I then add a little more water or powdered sugar to get the consistency that I want. This is a great coffee cake.

Doctored Cake Mix

Have you ever made a cake from a cake mix only to find it was a little dry? I have just the solution for you!

Take any cake mix and follow the directions on the back on the box BUT ADD one cup of flour, one cup of granulated sugar (not powdered sugar), one cup of sour cream, and one additional egg to the batter. Bake according to box directions. When cake is done baking, remove from oven and immediately cover with a towel for 20 minutes.

My FAVORITE cake to make uses the French Vanilla Cake mix (ingredients on back of box plus 1 cup flour, 1 cup granulated sugar, 1 cup sour cream, and one additional egg) and two teaspoons of almond extract. YUMMY!!!!

My Fancy Cake

Here is another cake that I decorated for my cake decorating class. I spent alot of time working with this cake and practicing my techniques. This cake is anything but perfect (I see all of my mistakes when I look at this picture and remember the cake) but I still am very proud of myself for creating it! It was a lot of work but it was worth it! I made everything for the cake except for the cake board and pillars. The flowers are made with royal icing. I left the aluminum foil on the flowers for the color effect that the silver gave the cake.