I use a box cake mix w/ pudding already in it.....when I cut them they seem to be so moist that they don't cut cleanly & crumble a little....how can I make them a little firmer but still moist & delicious? thanks

Do they all have pudding in them anymore? (I've no idea, but thought they did.)

I've used straight-from-the-box mixes for 30 years. Started adding an extra egg a few years ago. Also if you do the push-down method to get rid of the doming, this helps make the cake a little more dense and "firm".

Indydebi - can you please explain what the push down method is? I also tried adding an extra egg a couple of times & didn't seem to make that much difference....am I doing something else wrong? thanks.

when the cake comes out of the oven, lay a clean towel (or sometimes I used cake cardboards or plastic cake plates, depending on the size of the cake)on top of the cake and push down on the dome that you usually have when a cake comes out of the oven. This reduces the amount of leveling you may hvae to do, and I find it pushes out the 'air' that's in the cake, creating a nice dense textured cake.

Ok, so I don't let it cool first? the cake won't stick to the towel or board?

Not if you use a clean kitchen towel. It "might" stick to a cardboard, but I never had that happen. No, dont' let it cool first. THe cake is domed and fluffy because of the steam. You want to push the steam out of there and condense the cake.

When I would use this method, I'd do the push-down, do any trimming/leveling that may be needed and have it flipped out onto the cooling rack inside of two minutes after it came out of the oven.

Indydebi - Wow your good!! I wait 10 min to cool then flip...I've tried to flip earlier & the cake fell apart. I'm going to try your method, thanks.

I never had time to let a cake sit in the pans. I needed that cake outta there and needed to get clean up started.

Plus, since the cake was sitting in a hot pan, the cake would continue to bake for whatever time it remained in the pan and I never wanted that to happen. The cake was done when I removed it from the oven ..... I didn't need it to "bake" any longer.