Wash Day Cake - Gooey Butter Cake

Wash Day Cake, or Gooey Butter Cake as it is more well known, is a simple cake using cake mix to form a crust and topped with a powdered sugar and cream cheese filling.

Wash Day Gooey Butter Cake

Most people associate Gooey Butter Cake with Paula Deen, because it was brought to the forefront of everybody's attention and became famously associated with the Queen Deen, who added a multitude of variations to it.

Mandarin Orange Cake is what this dessert is typically known as in this part of The Deep South, but in many other areas of The South, this is more commonly known as Pig Pickin' Cake, though it has many names.

Mandarin Orange Pig Pickin' Cake

How y'all liking that vintage Tupperware Cake Taker plate up there?

I know for photo styling I should have used my mama's fancy footed cake plate, but this is one of those refrigerated cakes so in the cake taker it went. This one, in that classic mustard color, dates back to the 70s of course, and has been used many, many times. I actually have two of them - one was mine from back then and the other my mama's, which she very well may have purchased at a Tupperware party at my house!

I also have the rectangular one for sheet cakes. Anybody else still have one of these oldies hanging around?

Southern Strawberry Cake with Coconut and Pecan

Take our well-loved, made from a mix strawberry cake, add the usual strawberries and strawberry gelatin, but bump it up a level with toasted pecans and coconut, and you've got one delicious dessert y'all!

Strawberry Coconut Pecan Cake

I think the heat wave across the country, and especially the drought we're experiencing here in the Coastal South, is making it pretty difficult for most of us to get in the mood for cooking, much less baking. I can't even seem to get focused for recipe development, and that's not like me! I mean you need only look here to see it's been a week between my posts.

A delicious coffee cake known as Sock it To Me Cake, has the usual attendees of brown sugar, pecans and cinnamon, but, unlike most coffee cakes, it actually gets better as it sits - not that it'll be around that long.

Sour Cream Coffee Cake

When my Mama used a boxed cake mix, Duncan Hines Butter Recipe was the one she used.

In my opinion, it is the best boxed cake mix on the market and worth the extra money over generic, though with coupons and sales you can often get a great price on them and stock up.

What do you get what you marry the concepts of Paula Deen's Is it Really Better Than Sex Cake and a Mandarin Orange cake? This delectable treat!

Fresh Citrus Cake

These are the two cakes that stuck out in my mind when I had several pounds of tangerines left that I needed to use and I knew I wanted to use them to make some sort of a cake. So I took the two concepts and created this Fresh Citrus Not Better Than Sex Cake But Pretty Darned Good. Hey, don't look at me ... I didn't name it that originally.

Now first, I used the fresh tangerines because I had them and needed to use them, but absolutely substitute canned mandarin oranges! Keep it easy y'all.

Now, I do have to put in a disclaimer here for my local readers, since I can hear y'all saying "that is not a Better Than Sex Cake Mary."

Yes, I do realize that Paula Deen's "Is it Really Better Than Sex Cake" is nothing like the similar named "Chocolate Sin Lush Cake aka Better than Sex Cake" (that I did not name by the way) we know and love down here in this part of the south. Our "Better Than Sex Cake" always involves chocolate and nuts and cream cheese and Cool Whip and a few other ingredients, none of which are actual "cake."  You can find that delicious layered concoction right here and man oh man is it good.

Yellow cake mix gets a boost of banana, brown sugar and cinnamon, and is topped with a quick caramel icing and chopped pecans.

Easy Banana Cake with Quick Caramel Icing

This cake came about when I saw a from scratch, two layer banana cake that was just gorgeous and looked so darned good with a yummy butter and cream cheese icing and dotted with chunks of walnuts. I even bought the bananas with the intent of making it, but for some reason every time I thought about making it, I would look at the recipe and put it off. It seemed a bit daunting to me and I'm not a great layer cake baker.

Chocolate cake mix with marshmallows, sweetened coconut, sliced almonds, butter, chocolate chips make Almond Joy Cake, a fabulous and well loved candy bar cake.

Almond Joy Cake

Almond Joy Cake is one of the most popular of the doctored up cake mix cakes and it's no wonder really. Chocolate cake, topped with a layer of gooey marshmallow and coconut cream, that is topped with a creamy layer of chocolate and almonds, and more crunchy almonds on top - it's really rich and decadent I promise ya.