Kimberly, I've never heard of a 1-2-3-4 cake. Do you have a recipe? I think I'd love to try it. Cakes are my thing! I just wanted to say, if you've not had luck with homemade cakes and think a boxed cake is more moist, you may be baking the homemade version too long. Start checking the cake with a toothpick (in the middle of the pan) about 15 minutes before the directions say it should be done. Look for moist crumbs. When you see the crumbs, pull the cake out, as it will continue baking. Most people I know tend to bake their cakes too long. If you don't see any crumbs, then it went too far! Even 2-4 minutes can make a huge difference between a delicious, moist cake and one that is dry. When creaming the butter and sugar, make sure you let it go for a while in the mixer. (Medium speed for five minutes wouldn't be out of line.) I think it really helps to lighten the batter before adding the flour. Other things that could be a culprit is the type of flour you're using. Try cake flour; it may make a difference for you. I always load the (prepared) cake pan and bang it on the counter a couple of times, before it goes in the oven. It takes care of air bubbles that create cavities in the crumb, and helps level out the cake before it bakes. Lining the bottom of the pan with parchment really helps the cake come out. I typically let them cool for 10 minutes on a wire rack, then put another rack on top of the cake and turn it out, peeling the parchment from the cake. If you leave it any longer, it's sometimes hard to get out of the pan. (I think the moist heat helps release it.) Another thing I do when I preheat the oven, it to turn it 50 degrees higher than the recipe says. By the time you get the pans in (even if you're quick), your oven will lose that much heat. Then RESET the correct oven temperature and bake. This way, your oven doesn't need any recovery time, and your cake begins to bake right away, so your timing is more accurate. Good luck. I hope you'll give homemade another try. There are so many delicious versions, and it seems you can add so much more flavor when you make it yourself.

Wow, never in my wildest dreams would I have thought you ladies would have loved this recipe so well or I would have posted this recipe ages ago. My sweet sister in law who lives in Washington D.C. fixed this little "cake" for us sisters in laws about 3 or 4 years ago and we loved it. I really thought that it was well known about until I had several of my friends over and we were suppose to have a get together and make something crafty...I am NOT a craft person so I thought of this cake thing that my sister had shown us several years ago so I did this recipe with the ladies of my group. The ladies had so much fun with this recipe, and were ooohing and aaahing...so the next day I gave you the recipe. I was surprised that it was not well known. I have now started using it with my husband and myself more again..as I had gotten burned out and I had not experimented with it like you have done, so I am taking some of your ideas and running with it. I use the large muffin paper cups for mine so I do not have any clean up. Someone had posted that there was spill over if you use the cup cake paper cups, but not if you use the large cupcake paper cups. I am tickled you like them. Thanks.

Sheila, I knew that the angel food mix would make any cake mix a bit more bland, so for the chocolate I found a dark fudge chocolate cake mix, which worked very well. I didn't want to use Devil's Food, because to me it just looks dark, but doesn't have a lot of chocolate flavor. I made the right choice. The Dark Fudge Chocolate mix was just right. DH and my grandson have been experimenting with all sorts of flavorings (coffee, cocoa, fruit, etc.), but to me the whole point is 3-2-1 meaning "super simple". If I'm going to go to all that trouble, I might as well just make a whole cake, LOL.

Kellie--Some of that bigger stuff can go in the pantry, but not all of it can. I want all my food stuffs in the pantry first and foremost. I hate walking out to the garage every day to get that cans, etc. There will be left over room in there for non-food items. But remember, I have a LOT of non-food items, many huge and awkward, to store too. Blfenton--I don't mind the cabs in some places. I will store the stuff I hardly ever use (like the huge commercial stock pot on the kitchen side and the punch bowl on the DR side) in the back of the cabs. They don't fit well in drawers. I don't care about digging to the back the two times a year I need those items. I'm sorry if I confused you about the drawers. I was thinking 3 shallow drawers across the top at 16.6" wide each. Then a doored cabinet under the two closest to the fireplace. The cavity inside the two doors would be all open to allow me to store bigger, wider things and move them around as my inventory changes. Then, under the right of those 3 drawers would be 2 deeper drawers, which makes a 3-drawer stack. Does that make sense? Frankly, right now I don't have everything at hand to measure. Nor do I have the time to lay every single item I have out to obsess over what will fit in what size of drawer and how deep that drawer should be. I have so many other decisions I need to make for the house that are holding us up from making progress. Island will be my prep area. I don't have enough storage there for all my prep stuff, so it will overflow back to the drawers flanking the rangetop and share space with my cooking supplies. The drawers to the right of the rangetop will also be cooking items and baking items as I moved the baking zone to the right of the range. Garbage is in a pullout at the north end of the island so it's usable for prep and cleanup chores. Here's my initial cabinet layout before the peninsula shrunk. I also decided on 4-drawer stacks flanking the rangetop instead of 3-drawer stacks. Thanks for the words about my uncle. He wanted to die, but that doesn't make it any easier for those of us left missing him.