Watermelon Cake

A little while ago, I decided I wanted to make a cute, vanilla cake with my favorite icing. While browsing the Betty Crocker website, I came across a watermelon cake. I decided to opt out of using the suggested green jelly beans on the side because I'd have to buy too many bags of jelly beans to get that many green ones. I also decided to use my mom's vanilla frosting recipe instead of using the packaged stuff suggested on the site...vanilla cake with super-sweet vanilla frosting is one of my favorite desserts of all time.

Unfortunately, I was unable to find any red watermelon flavored drink mix, and I really wanted the inside of the cake to be pink, so I opted for strawberry out of personal preference instead.

If you make this recipe, the frosting amount may not yield enough frosting. I made this awhile ago, and I remember having to make some extra frosting but I'm not totally sure how much I made in the first place so I can't modify it correctly. It's really simple to just make a little more anyway, though.

Here is what the finished product looks like:



This is the recipe I used:

Watermelon Cake, based on Betty Crocker's Watermelon Cake

Cake
1 box white cake mix
1 1/4 cups water
1/3 cup vegetable oil
3 egg whites
1 package (0.13 oz) strawberry flavored soft drink mix (or any other red soft drink mix)
1/2 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips

Directions:

1.Heat oven to 350°F. Grease bottoms only of two 8- or 9-inch round cake pans with shortening or cooking spray.

2. In large bowl, beat cake mix, water, oil, egg whites and drink mix with electric mixer on low speed 30 seconds; beat on medium speed 2 minutes.

3. Stir in 1/2 cup of the chocolate chips. Pour into pans.

4. Bake as directed on box for 8- or 9- inch pans.

Frosting
8 cups confectioner's sugar
8-12 tbsp milk (I used vanilla soymilk but plain milk works just as well)
4 tsp vanilla
Green and red food colors
2 tbsp miniature semisweet chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Add sugar, 8 tbsp milk and vanilla in large bowl.

2. Mix with an electric mixer (you probably can do it without the mixer, but it will be harder). Add extra milk (if necessary) until desired consistency is reached.

3. In small bowl, stir about 1/2-1 cup of the frosting with 10-12 drops green food coloring.

4. Stir 10-12 drops red food coloring into the remaining frosting.

Putting it all together:

1. Frost sides of cake with green frosting and top and middle of cake with red frosting.

2. Press 2 tbsp chocolate chips into top of cake as "seeds."

Now you have a watermelon cake!