This cake is more about presentation than taste. Definitely 5 stars for presentation, as it is a very pretty cake, with its thick white, pink and brown swirls! However, this only rates 3 stars for flavor, which was rather flat. I wanted a richer cake, so I prepared the cake mix (French vanilla) with 4 eggs, 1 c. sour cream, 2/3 c. oil and 2 tsp. vanilla and NO water, a fairly standard cake mix enhancement. Each of the individual batters suffered in flavor, which with some tweaking could be remedied. I added 1/2 tsp. strawberry extract, but in the future would double that, as well as doubling the amount of cocoa in the chocolate batter. Still, a very moist and acceptable cake, made better with "Shiny Chocolate Glaze," also from this site. This cake is so darn pretty it's well worth the effort to make some adjustments to improve the intensity of flavor.

I made cupcakes using this receipe for my son's class. The kids thought they were very tasty and pretty.