Once upon a time there was... Amaretto Cake

On the day we made amaretto cake, we had some culinary disasters.  We failed at making caramel for a different recipe, twice.  More on that later... So, when we had a party to go to, a dessert we needed to bring, and not a lot of time left to do it, we turned to our trusty amaretto cake!  Now, castle farm cookbook blog readers probably know about our aversion to box cake mixes.  To summarize, we don't like them.  How can one properly cream the butter with the sugar? Or add the eggs 1 at a time, scraping after each, if everything in the box just gets dumped.  But this is one recipe where we accept that sometimes a cow and/or pigs gotta do what a cow and/or pigs gotta do, even if that means buying baking products from a box.  It's really worth it.

ingredients
1 18.25 oz yellow cake mix
1 5oz package instant vanilla pudding
4 eggs
1/2 c water
1/2 c canola oil
1/2 c + 2 Tbsp amaretto
1/4 tsp almond extract
1 c sifted confectioners sugar + more for sprinkling

instructions
1. preheat oven to 350.  grease and flour a bundt pan.

2.  combine cake mix, pudding mix, eggs, water, oil, 2 Tbsp amaretto, and almond extract and blend together.

us, ashamed of the boxes

us, with the only ingredient we can be proud of

thats right, just dump it all in there and mix it up.

3. pour into prepared pan.  bake for 40-45 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean.

4. near the end of the baking time, whisk together the 1/2 c amaretto and confectioners sugar to make a glaze.

5. when the cake comes out of the oven, poke holes everywhere, using a fork, knife or toothpick.  be liberal with the poking and make them deep.

6. pour glaze all over cake while it is still hot (this is important).  now let it sit for 2 hours.

7.  remove cake from the bundt, you might have to nudge it a bit, especially if you let it sit longer than 2 hours.

why is there a hole in my cake?

8. sprinkle with powdered sugar to look pretty.

For all of our complaining about box mixes, etc, there is one very good reason we make this cake.  it is one VERY good cake.

pig, out.