I am making a lady bug cake for a birthday party this weekend I'm using the Wilton ladybug pan. I used a milk chocolate box cake and once it cooled it fell all to pieces. I also used a recipe off of here and it's not as tall and fluffy as I would like it. So my question is what type of cake should I use to make it fluffy and tall? She wants chocolate cake mix. Thanks

next time you use a box cake mix, try adding an additional egg, and then replacing the water with buttermilk... it tends to make it a little denser, and it actually make the cake taste a little better! Also, are you cooling the cake completely in the pan? because that is a no no! make sure you take it out of the pan to cool on a cooling rack after its been out of the oven for 10 minutes otherwise it will sweat to death. Also maybe instead of milk chocolate box mix, go for a devils food or chocolate fudge, because they should be a little denser, little harder to fall apart once its cooled.

I'm not sure why your cake fell apart. Did you let it cool in the pan? I usually have no problem with Wilton shaped pans and boxed cake mix. It works really well. You could try the Hershey's Cocoa chocolate cake recipe. It makes a little denser cake than cake mix or you could try adding chocolate to a pound cake recipe.

You may want to try adding a box of pudding mix to the cake batter. It will make it more dense and help it from sinking.

Sometimes decreasing the water in the box recipe by 1/4 cup will make a ball or rounded shape cake hold up better.

Hope it helps.

I let it cool in the pan for 10 minutes then placing it on the cooling rack. The second one I made was a recipe from the forum and it turned out perfect but to me it needed to be a half inch taller. I may try the hersheys cocoa recipe as well to see which one is better thank you both for your feedback it hes out a lot.