I've made this for years, regular chocolate cake mix is fine, just not as rich. I've substituted Kahula for some of the water, used peanut butter chips instead of chocolate chips. The cake is so rich that I usually just sprinkle a little powdered sugar on it when I'm ready to serve it. I'm addicted to chocolate so I've never tried any other flavor of cake mix with different pudding flavors. I'm thinking it would come out just as moist.

I've made this cake for years and I just used any kind of chocolate cake mix with it. The only thing I never used was the one tablespoon of vanilla, sounds a bit much to me. I usually sprinkled powdered sugar on it as I thought there was enough chocolate in it. (Shame on me).

You could also replace one of the eggs with 1/3 applesauce. That makes it moister (or is it more moist) as well.

With a regular chocolate cake mix, you could add a little cocoa powder to it to make it more chocolatey. When I bake a cake from a mix, I substitute buttermilk for the water. It is very moist and I always get so many compliments on the cake.

Duncan Hines has (had ?) a similar recipe on the side of their lemon cake - I've used it on many - changing the cake mix and pudding flavor accordingly. Comes out great every time. They had a recipe for the glaze on the lemon one that was just lemon juice and confectioners sugar - so much better than what they put on the boxes now. Haven't made the chocolate version in quite some time but I think I just melted chips with a little butter for that glaze.

I put butter scotch chips and a few tablespoons of pudding mix in chocolate chip cookies, they are out of this world. And they stay softer too.

I've been experimenting with cake mix cookies. One box mix, 1/2 cup oil, 2 eggs. Drop on ungreased cookie sheet, bake at 350 for 13-15 min. With spice cake I add raisins & nuts. With lemon mix I add pecans. With white mix, I add butterscotch bits and/or choc chips. From start to finish it takes about 30 minutes to stir up a batch. Makes approx. 2-1/2 doz. cookies.

Thanks for sharing...My mom use to bake a cake like that..Yum...Use a reg. choc cake mix...