Care to offer some cake-baking tips?

Honestly.I make every cake from a box and no one has ever noticed. I change up the recipe a little. i use milk instead of water and I use er or cream cheese instead of oil. For chocolate cakes I add cocoa powder of melted chocolate. For white cakes I only use the egg white cause it makes the cake brilliantly white instead of a little yellow. I add a teaspoon of baking powder to make the cake a little more fluffy. Bake it at 325 instead of 350. It makes the cake rise more. For chocolate cakes i add oil and er so the will be extra moist. When the cake comes out of the oven i cover the pan with a layer of saran wrap, so it stays moist while cooling. there are so may things I do wrong or that are not supposed to be done, but I have never had a bad cake and I have alot of repeat customers. I even did a wedding cake from a box cake and everyone loved it. It is so inexpensive a box cake costs $.99 and a box of cake flour is $3.99 and you only get 2 cakes out of it. A 5 pound bag of sugar costs $3.00. It saves you a lot of money. just take your time making it use those substitutions and no one will ever know.