First, let me say never send hubby to pick up cake mixes. Poor thing, I asked him to get chocolate fudge flavor and french vanilla flavor. He comes back with plain old yellow and ordinary chocolate.

I always doctor my mixes anyway (cake mix, pudding mix, 1/2 c water, 1/2 c oil, 1 c sour cream, 4 eggs)

Here are my questions:

1) What exactly makes the french vanilla - well, french? LOL What else can I add to the regular yellow to make it more vanilla-y & french? LOL

2) Can I add 1/4 c - 1/2 c of dark cocoa powder to make the ordinary chocolate more chocolatey? Would I need to add any addition liquid (see above recipe) or should I be ok just sifting in the cocoa w/the mix?

Thanks...

I have french vanilla flavoring that I add to my mixes, so I'm not too much help there. If you have The Cake Mix Doctor she explains how to add melted ice cream to your mix, if you have FV ice cream maybe you can try that? As far as chocolate, think adding melted chocolate chips would work better than cocoa powder. Good Luck! (The last time I sent DH to get 2 cake mixes, he came back with 2 cans of frosting lol!)

I think French vanilla kind of refers to that "eggy" flavor ...usually more pronouncable (atleast to me) in ice cream. I have had French vanilla cake mix cake, and the flavor wasn't so different from white. Yet French vanilla ice cream is very easy to distinguish because of the eggy flavor.

I'm not sure what make the French vanilla "french" but I am in the same boat with you. French Vanilla is my "standard" yellow cake (yellow cake to me is just too, yellow! lol - if that makes sense ) You could trying adding a little vanilla extract to the mix along with your vanilla pudding. They do make French vanilla pudding also - I usually try to use that.

Now I only use the Dark Chocolate Fudge as my chocolate cake also!!! I add the chocolate pudding and I also add Chocolate Syrup. Just regular old Hershey's Chocolate Syrup. I guess I add about 1/2 a cup or so into the mix. I don't change my other liquids any just add the syrup in addition to. I haven't had any problems. But you could also try adding the cocoa powder - I know they sell Dark Chocolate Cocoa powder. I can't answer if you should adjust the liquids with that - I would assume you may need too but if you're adding the chocolate syrup also then you may not need to add any additional liquid!

Don't know how much help that was for you!

I add about 1/2 cup of unsweetend baking cocoa to my chocolate mixes.

When I use a yellow cake mix I will either use French vanilla pudding and French vanilla extract or just the french vanilla pudding and regular vanilla extract.

not sure why i wasn't getting notified of replies on this thread.

thank you all for your help.