Spice Cake Bars... a delicious (pre)fall treat!

I was on my way home from work last Wednesday when I had the desire to go home and bake something yummy. This happens from time to time, usually on days when I know I'm going home to an empty apartment because Matt is working late. I'm not sure why I like to bake when I'm home alone, but I do. Maybe it's the fun of surprising Matt when he gets home with something yummy. Anyway, on this particular day it was feeling just a tiny bit like fall, so I wanted to make something that reminded me of fall... something pumpkin or cinnamon-spicey or something like that. I remembered that I have a recipe for cake bars that uses a cake mix and is essentially just really dense cake. So then it came to me-- what if I made those using a spice cake mix???

So off to Publix I went. They had cake mixes buy one get one free, so I got Duncan Hines mixes for $.93 each. It would have been better if I had a coupon, like I did for some razors I bought. I have to tell you about this deal-- Publix also had Bic Soliel 3-pack razors buy one get one. They were originally $5.79 per pack, so they were on sale for $2.90 each. I had two coupons (that may or may not have been expired... If the self check-out machine takes expired coupons, it's their problem) and one was for $3 off one pack and the other was $2 off one pack. Grand total: $.79 for TWO packs of razors!

Back to the cake bars.

I bought my cake mix and went home.

After making myself some dinner and vegging on the couch for an hour or so, it was time to get up and try out this idea. So I went into the kitchen and gathered my supplies.

Simple supplies that almost everyone has on hand.

First, mix together the cake mix, 1 egg, and 1/4 cup oil. It will be very thick. Slowly add in 1/3 to 1/2 cup of milk to keep the mix good and dense. Spray your baking dish--I used either an 8x8 or 9x9 glass dish (clearly I have no idea what size this thing is, but it worked)--with cooking spray and dump the batter into it. It looks like this:

I did a really poor job of mixing and there were still chunks
of cake mix that didn't get thoroughly mixed...
if yours looks like this, it's ok, it doesn't affect the taste.

Then pop it into a 350 degree oven for 25 minutes. It comes out looking oh so yummy and smelling delicious! You're going to want to cut into this immediately, but it'll still be a little gooey in the middle, so wait. I know it's hard, but you can do it! I think I let mine sit 15-20 minutes. It was still warm and just gooey enough.

Mmmm.

As I was waiting for the cake bars to cool, I was trying to decide what to pair with them. I had some cream cheese in the fridge and thought about making cream cheese icing--which probably would have been delicious on these--but I think that would have made this dessert just a little more rich than I wanted it to be. As I was scanning my cupboards and fridge for an idea, I found some heavy cream that I had used for a recipe earlier in the week. Bingo! Whipped cream! I had never made homemade whipped cream before, so I consulted Google for a recipe, and came across this one. Sounded good to me!

Being as I had never made this before, I did what the recipe said and just started whipping the ingredients together with a whisk. I whipped and I whipped and I whipped... but the cream didn't. Time to bust out the big guns. I put that stuff in my Kitchenaid mixer, put on the whisk attachment, turned it on somewhere between medium and high speed, and watched it work it's magic.

I didn't register for this fantastic machine when we
got married because I thought I didn't need one.
Thankfully, Matt's grandma knew what was up
and bought us one anyway.
Thank you, Grandma Tsilimos! 

So, after the whipped cream was ready and the bars were cooled (mostly) this was the finished product:

Ok, so I took a bit before remembering to take a picture.
I couldn't wait.

Final thoughts: This was delicious! I'm definitely adding it to my list of regular desserts. And the great thing about this recipe is that you can use any kind of cake mix you want, you could add things into it like chocolate chips, nuts, coconut, sprinkles, etc., and you could do any kind of icing to make it your own. There are infinite options out there! (Here's where I got my original inspiration for this recipe.)

Happy baking, everyone!