Hey all. now, im not really a fan of boxed stuff, but i gigured i would try it again after all these years.

basically, lemon box cake, lemon pudding mix, instead of water put soda, the oil, 3 eggs..

baked it for 35 minutes (its a 9 x 13), and after it cooled completely to my surprise it was way too moist! Not in the under baked way, the outside was definitely golden and the knife came out clean, but when i poked it, it made a squishy noise. every where i poked it with my finger, squish. no cake came off with my finger, but still.

what do i do to try and remedy this? Ive had dry cakes before, but never something like this. should i leave it on the counter uncovered for a few hours? at the moment it is covered in tin foil (i didnt want to make it air tight with plastic wrap, figured it would retain way too much moisture..)

well, i've never had a cake too moist. i've had undercooked or soggy.
can only suggest couple of thoughts...with the soda and pudding plus the cake mix it has a lot of sugar (a liquifyer), plus the oil (which only coats the flour and not absorbed, like butter)

so i would say the combination of these are the problem...if a too moist cake is a problem. maybe leave out the oil...is the cake like an olive oil cake texture (moist - oily)?
or leave out the soda.
hope this helps...sorry i didn't have an exact answer/solution

Sometimes this happens with cakes cooked with oil. The oil keeps the cake moist, sometimes too moist. Maybe use a bit less next time ? Maybe that will work. It has happened to me with a box mix. The cake was yucky and I ended up throwing it away and starting over with something different. I know what you mean though. The cake is cooked but weird, greasy, wet and squishy. Good Luck.

I agree the sugar content can make things overly moist. I use diet soda when using soda and make sure your cake mix didn't already have pudding in it. Lots of people add pudding to mixes that say pudding included but if it's not working for you that could be an issue.

Sounds like too much fat in the recipe to me!

This same thing happened to me when I tried making WASC with a DH mix. It wasn't a "pudding in the mix" one either. Not sure what brand of mix you used, but I know when I tried using pudding in the DH white, it was a weird, gross texture.

The recipes I've seen using soda don't use eggs or oil at all. Here's an example with a lot of flavor combinations--this one calls for just egg whites, and they're optional: http://www.food.com/recipe/4-points-diet-soda-cake-130793

Also, did the cake mix you use have pudding already in it (not DH)?