Lemon Blueberry Cake

I must agree with many reviews. This is definitely NOT a recipe. It’s just throwing together a pre-made cake & canned frosting then throwing some fruit on it. That’s sad. If you made your own cake & frosting, that would be different (and I don’t mean a boxed cake) This recipe is fine for someone who never baked before.

If a recipe calls for store bought cake mix and pre-made frosting, then it’s not really even a recipe.

I’m quite impressed. Instead of store bought cake, I used two boxed white cakes plus added some blueberries to the batter. The cakes came out moist and lovely. Also, I whipped my buttercream with some lemon extract (which tastes mediocre at first). I assembled and it was lovely. I did not use the lemonade concentrate, instead created my own and spread it on the cake. And coated the decorative blueberries in a silver glitter sugar. It was beautiful!

Four stars simply because it’s a good idea, and you are able to improve the recipe.

Pretty good for a boxed cake!!

I CAN cook! So can Sandra Lee. I’ve tried several recipes of hers with great success. Not every meal is, can or should be Cordon Bleu and Sandra Lee’s MO isn’t to pretend that somehow her recipes are. Her recipes are about making the best and the most with what you already have or can afford and do it in a reasonable amount of time. While I am not in a financial pinch the way the majority of our country seems to be in, I can still appreciate the simplicity and taste in her recipes. As for this one it was something that even a Cordon Bleu graduate would taste at a pot luck and no doubt have seconds. Keep it up Sandra!!!

Seriously Glutton again SEMI HOME-MADE! This recipe is for someone who is in a big hurry and doesn’t want to run into the grocery store bakery. It’s yummy and creative. I had a little more time on my hands and prepared this cake with a lemon cake mix and made up my own cream cheese frosting but followed the rest of the recipe to the letter, including the lemonade concentrate (umm again hello you that balk at this and suggest people who like her show can’t cook…lemonade concentrate is a lemon simple syrup. Can be made from scratch with 1 part fresh lemon juice to 1 part sugar but the concentrate is a whole lot easier for people who are IN A HURRY). Yummy!

This cake was easy and tasted awesome. It impressed my co-workers, and everyone loved it.

I avoided making this cake for quite a while after I got the recipe, because I thought, “store-bought cake, how good could it be?” But after reading the reviews I decided to try it, and I was amazed. I used a lemon cake mix, because there are no pre-made layer cakes available around here. Otherwise, I followed the recipe. I remained dubious, because I tasted the frosting, and thought it was mediocre.
But somehow when it all came together, it was really very good. You may notice that everyone that reviewed the cake gave it a 5-star rating. The 2 reviewers who gave it only one star,had not even made the cake. This says all there is to say.

I just made this cake for my card club last night, and it was delicious!! The cake looked like I put a lot of effort into it but really it easy and fairly quick to put together, looked good and I’m usually pretty horrible at making a decent-looking cake. There are a lot of “foodies” in our group, and they were not offended by how it was made – the bottom line is that it was yummy! It’s a great summer dessert.

I realize this column is to critique recipes and not the host, but I’ve seen so much criticism of Sandra here in the reviews, in Usenet food groups, and other food blogs for using so much store-bought, ready-made food in her recipes.

Her show is called Semi HomeMade, and her voiceover during the titles clearly states that the focus of her show is to use 70% store-bought, ready-made food and 30% fresh. It seems, therefore, very unfair to demean the host for developing recipes utilizing so many store-bought, ready-made food stuffs.

Unlike the many cook-from-scratch shows, her intent is to present interesting recipes for people who don’t have the time or the inclination to get up to their elbows in from-scratch cooking: working parents, single parents, perhaps college students who want to put something together for themselves or a small party without having to resort to take-out. In that context, her show delivers exactly what is promised; and she tells viewers that right up front. No doubt she can cook from scratch quite well, and could create a show like Ina’s or Paula’s, but she is targeting a totally different audience: people who want creative recipes, but don’t care to start from scratch.

If you don’t want ready-made foods creatively assembled, then don’t watch the show. The Food Network has a wide variety from Emeril to Alton Brown for those who like to get their hands dirty and get down to the nitty gritty. But please don’t dump on Sandra for performing a very vital service for those in the Food Network audience who don’t care to become start-to-finish cooks and chefs.