It’s practically impossible to ruin a skillet. The trick is not being afraid to fuck up. Embrace it and use it as fuel to become better. Only way to get better is to fail and learn from your epic fuck ups. If you’re not fucking up you’re not growing.
This one was an "ultimate". It had 4 cheeses, mushrooms, shishito peppers, onions, sausage, and the sauce was a blend of tomato achaar and curry sauce. Then topped with fresh basil.
I’m going to disagree with a lot of the suggestions here to substitute ingredients or add an extra egg. I think you should follow the recipe on the box exactly and don’t bother with the experimentation.
Cake mixes have been engineered to produce decent cake as long as you follow the instructions. The food scientists at Pillsbury and Duncan Hines knew what they were doing when they added in all those unpronounceable ingredients whose only purpose is to make the cake mix idiot proof. You’d be surprised by the amount of people who say they love my cake and are shocked when they hear it came from a box.
I wouldn’t add anything liquid-y like jam or jelly until after the cake is baked. Some dried ingredients like nuts in the mix would probably be fine though.
Changing the base of the cake is going to be a huge gamble. Anything you add to the cake mix can change how it bakes and make it not rise enough, become too dry, or fail in any other way. So the best option is to bake the mix as instructed. Then you can add things. For suggestions, it would be helpful if you said what type of cake mix it is.
A simple method would be to cut the cake in half horizontally and add some jam/jelly/marmalade. Works with basically every base, and you pick a jam flavor that goes well with the base.
For the chocolate frosting, the easiest and simplest is to just use chocolate and butter. Use 1.5 times as much chocolate as butter. Just break the chocolate and butter into small pieces and put them in a bowl. Preferably a metal bowl and then melt everything over warm water. Use a second bowl with hot water, and put the bowl with the mix in the water. As soon as the mix is liquid put it on top of your cake. You have to work fast or the frosting will solidify but you can always remelt it.
You can literally use any type of chocolate you have. Milk chocolate will make a softer frosting, so if you want it to be hard use something else. If it's unsweetened chocolate you might want to add some sugar. But just taste the melted mix first and then add to taste. You can also add any type of nuts to it.
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