Recipe Tweaking, help me with a cake

I do this annual Dutch Oven cookoff. I have yet to win, but I took second a couple of times.

I tested a Chocolate Cherry Cream Cheese cake last night. The basic recipe is box chocolate cake mix, canned cherry pie filling, and a cream cheese filling (cream cheese, sugar and eggs).

We all agreed it was "good" but now "wow", and not a prizewinner.. I'm not much normally for mix type recipes, but obviously if you were doing a campout the scales weigh towards convienience. The cream cheese filling could have been sweeter, less cherry stuff.

What I am looking for is ideas on how to make it a little more: decadent, fudgy, how I might substitute raspberry for cherries ( fresh?) etc.

here's the original recipe
http://papadutch.home.comcast.net/~papadutch/dutch-oven-recipe-cherrychoccake.htm


Served warm right out of the DO of course,

I'll check the fruit stand for fresh peaches.
So DO raspberry-chocolate decadence is out of the question?

You'd be surprised, the competition is pretty stiff. I've come in second the last few years.

What I think I will try, is do to a raspberry filling with the cream cheesy part, and swirl it. The cherries are too blobby. Then, for the fudgy component I may just drizzle hot fudge sauce over it before serving, and serve with whipped cream. Naturally I have to test it out at home first.

I've never done scratch cakes (not many cakes at all) so trying to discern which box mix might give the most fudgy results is a crap shoot.

Oh my. I just happen to need to make a costco run.

I suppose DO purists would do **everything** from scratch, but the whole creaming butter/sugar/eggs by hand, plus whipping eggs whites... a little labor intensive. There will be electricity at the cook out, but never on the Middle Fork.

I'll have to see if that mix has the option for "cakey".

share?
maybe if I make two desserts I could double my chances?

Oh wait, I only have one DO.

Variation #1 is on the coals:
1 T more sugar in the cream cheese
No cherries, going for a raspberry swirl instead
Using a triple chocolate fudge cake mix and a sprinkle of chocolate chips...

pnj said:

from scratch or nothing. Would you buy pre-pleated fabric? I dunno, maybe but never pre-made cakes!

Click to expand...

not the same. Picture this, you are 120 miles from the nearest road, hauling everything in your kitchen packed into a dry box. I suppose the ultimate purist would pack a sifter, cream their butter and sugar by hand... but that's not me.