Week 4: Dr. Devil’s Food Cake

Have you heard of diet soda cakes? Well, now you have. The idea is simple. You select a cake box mix and instead of adding oil, eggs, and water, you simply add a can of diet soda. “But how is that possible?” you ask. Well, I’m not entirely sure. But it works! I read somewhere that when boxed cake mixes first hit grocery store shelves, they simply required that you add water and bake. They didn’t sell well. Customer research revealed home bakers felt that the process was too easy. So the cake box people adjusted the mix and directions to require eggs, oil, and water. But I suppose there’s still some sort of loophole in which you don’t have to add so much fat to cake mix to make it work.

I first heard about diet soda cakes a few years ago, but had never tried it. Then I was at a destination spa in 2010 and some fellow guests and I were gushing about how great the cupcake dessert was. We learned it was a made with cake mix and diet lemon lime soda. We were shocked. It tasted so great and decadent and yet it was a “diet” treat. Since then I’ve wanted to try making my own batch so when I started compiling ideas for 52 cake recipes, I knew I wanted to make at least one diet soda cake.

For week 4, I didn’t have any special occasions to bake for. And since I’m trying very hard to not let Weekly Cake turn into Weekly Weight Gain, I jumped at the opportunity to make a reduced guilt cake.

There are an infinite number of flavor combinations when making this type of cake. Since I’m a chocoholic, I went with devil’s food cake and I thought Diet Dr. Pepper would complement it nicely. So here’s my mise en place. My grocery store didn’t have cans of Diet Dr. Pepper so I bought the whole bottle and measured our 12 fluid ounces. And since this cake wasn’t going to be frosted, I picked up some fat free whipped topping to serve it with.

I should also mention the cake mix was on sale for 99 cents. The ingredients for this cost less than $5. And you could make this cake in the dark with your hands tied behind your back. Simply empty the cake mix into a large bowl. Then dump a can of diet soda in and mix.

As I mixed the batter, I realized this was going to be a dense cake. The mix resembled brownie batter.

Then I poured the mix into my brand new bundt pan. I prepped it by spraying the inside with cooking spray and using a sprinkle of the dry cake mix in place of flour. I don’t remember who told me that tip, but it’s a great one. When making boxed cake mix, just use a smidge of the dry mix in place of flour to prep your pan and you avoid those unsightly splotches of white on your finished cake. This is especially important when baking cakes that aren’t going to be frosted.

On a side note, I recently learned that only bundt pans made by Nordic Ware can legally be called bundt pans, so this was actually a fluted pan. You get the idea. You can use any shape pan for this. I heard that you simply follow the directions on the cake mix box to determine bake time, but be sure to check the cake as mine baked up faster than it should have.

You’ll see the cake batter didn’t come up very high in the pan. And please ignore the splattered cake mix on the counter.

Then I baked the cake at 350 for 28 minutes, rotating at the 18 minute mark. According to the cake mix box, it should have baked in 36 minutes, but when I rotated the pan at the 18 minute mark, it looked more than halfway done so it only needed 10 more minutes. For more on determining when a cake is finished, see my tip post: Check for Doneness

Look how gorgeously this baked up.

I let it cool in the pan on a wire rack for a few minutes before flipping it out of the pan. It slid right out. I love when that happens.

You’ll see it didn’t rise very much, but it did keep its shape. Chris said it looked like a giant donut. After it cooled a bit more, I thought it looked a little “naked” so I sifted some powdered sugar on top.

I didn’t wait very long before cutting into it.

It was very moist and tasty. The Diet Dr. Pepper gave it a delicious, spiced quality, just like the soda. This cake was so easy and cheap to make. I can’t say enough about it.

Have you ever tried to make a diet soda cake? If so, I’d love to hear about it. Let me know in the comments or email me at tips [at] weeklycake.com.