Mandarin Orange Cake

Despite myself and all three kids being under the weather (Carly and Abi were up most of the night with a horrid cough and fevers) I decided to be domestic and make a cake from a recipe I found in the Costco Cookbook.  It looked simple enough and very pretty (you must take a look at this link to fully appreciate my failure).

Mine did not turn out to be as pretty as their version.  I have already figured out all of the mistakes I made and will try not to do them again, as this is a very tasty treat.  I am sure it will taste even better when I master the appearance of it.  So with that, next time I will:

1)  Use 2 round cake pans instead of one round and one square

2)  Make sure that the cakes are completely cooled before frosting

3)  Double check the amounts of juice/oranges in each container

4)  Use plain vanilla pudding.  The pudding I had contained small chocolate chips...although I think it helped with the flavor a bit.  Chocolate and orange were meant to be together.