Whenever I Make Boxed Chocolate Cake Mix, I Always Add This Beloved Condiment to the Batter

I like to eat dessert — I just don’t necessarily love to make it. That’s why I love a good boxed mix. Brownies are a particular boxed fave, but a close second is chocolate cake. Too often, though, cake made from a mix can seem kind of, well, bland. A boxed mix delivers a serviceable dessert, but, let’s be honest, it’s nothing to write home about. 

That’s why I love boxed mix hacks. Give me the cheat codes to unlock the hidden potential of a run-of-the-mill box of cake mix; I’m here for the tweaks. While I’ve been known to employ a few of these at once to give the cake a whole new flavor, sometimes I just want to stir in something quick to enhance the final product. When I’m in one of those moods I turn to an ingredient I often use in a similar way in savory dishes, and surprisingly it works just as well for dessert: soy sauce.

I use soy sauce in savory dishes all the time. Adding a small amount is a shortcut to creating a backbone of rich umami flavor without making a dish taste explicitly of soy sauce — which is why it works so well in chocolate cake. Stirring a little bit into chocolate cake batter is a bit of a magic trick. It adds salinity and umami (both great complements to sweetness) to the cake without revealing itself. It simply tastes like a deeply chocolaty, more satisfying version of a boxed chocolate cake. 

• Don’t go overboard. I add about 1 tablespoon to the cake batter with the rest of the wet ingredients. A little goes a long way.
• Use low-sodium soy sauce. If you’re making a cake from scratch you can adjust the salt in the recipe to account for the presence of the soy sauce. But because chocolate cake mix already has some salt in it, using low-sodium soy sauce helps prevent the cake from becoming too salty.

This post originally appeared on The Kitchn. See it there: Whenever I Make Boxed Chocolate Cake Mix, I Always Add This Beloved Condiment to the Batter