Ace is one of those ”bakers” that only bake with cake mixes and canned frostings.  We all know one of those.  We have this habit of baking a dessert together whenever we hang out in her gorgeous vintage Town & Country kitchen and then enjoying it over TiVo-ed episodes of Hannah Montana. 

baking in the vintage kitchen

Usually, I bake us something simple and sugary, or Ace will whip up one of her boxed cakes.  This time, we did something different.  We made a fancy (well, fancier than usual, for us) cake mix cake.  And this wasn’t the usual cake mix!  No Betty Crocker/Duncan Hines/Pillsbury – we used a Cherrybrook Kitchen Gluten Free cake mix!  Cherrybrook Kitchen specialize in making baking mixes that are gluten free/dairy free/peanut free/egg  free.

Ace and the gluten free cake mix

This was exciting, as Ace had never had a gluten free dessert before, and I’ve never tried a gluten free cake mix before!

The best part about gluten free and dairy free baking? You can eat all the raw batter you want, without any fears of getting samonella from raw eggs!!  And its much easier and cleaner to mix together since it has less ingredients.

 I really should try to bake gluten free more often.  Its so much better for your digestion system than baking with gluten.

gluten free cake with waffle toppings

 So how was the Cherrybrook Kitchens gluten free mix?  Well… to be honest, it kind of tasted like cardboard.  By itself, it didn’t have much flavor and had a strange texture.  The only good parts were the chocolate chips scattered throughout the batter, but those were few and far between.  We added LOTS of chocolate frosting and all the breakfast toppings we could find in the fridge to save it.  We ended up adding strawberries in syrup (waffle topping), fresh strawberries, whipped cream, and chocolate syrup in addition to the chocolate frosting – basically all my favorite breakfast toppings!  It was delicious for me this way, but I’m used to gluten free desserts.  Everyone else thought the cake was still cardboard-y and weird even with all the added toppings.

I don’t think I would ever buy one of these Cherrybrook Kitchens mixes again… but I haven’t tried any of the other flavors.  Maybe those are better.  I must try some other brands of gluten free mixes… I hope they’re not all cardboardy.  I really like gluten free desserts by scratch, though.

To make this cake, take a boxed chocolate cake mix of your choice and prepare according to directions on the box.  Once the cake has baked and cooled, frost it generously with chocolate frosting.  Then spoon strawberry waffle topping over it.  Add sliced fresh strawberries on top for garnish.  Generously decorate with whipped cream and then drizzle with chocolate syrup.  Yummy and pretty!

And don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten about the Quest!  Will post on that later