Do you use Boxed Cake Mixes?

[BROWNSUGA]

Scratch!! When I first encountered my love for baking, I used to use box mixes. Back then, there was no cake mix doctor. I remember making a banana bread....from scratch. It came out greatl and gave me the boost and confidence to try other scratch recipes. It wasnt easy. I cannot blame my failure soley on the recipes. Alot of them were messed up b/c I didnt know what I was doing!! Early on, I really didnt know what I was doing. As I learned more, it became easier.

I would often bake cakes (from a mix) and take them to functions. People would rave and say how great they were. Then, the compliments were always followed by "Did you bake that from scratch?" Well, I didnt know what to say. I didnt want to lie, knowing that I didnt deserve the credit -- Betty Crocker or Duncan Hines did. That was the final push that I needed!

Now, when someone says, "oh, that is good. Did you bake that from scratch?" I can proudly say yes! Some people cannot tell the difference between scratch and mix. And I know some people who prefer a mix cake. However, I personally prefer the taste of a good scratch cake. Oh, and as far as cost, cake mixes are expensive in my area.

Personally, I enjoy baking. I enjoy the challenges that comes with it. I love cake decorating, too. But, I am a baker first.

Edited April 23, 2005 by BROWNSUGA (log)

[Wendy DeBord]

I've written this before, but I'll add it again. I do use some cake mixes......for various reasons. Only white cake and yellow cake................I've yet to find perfect recipes for those two flavors that people like better then what I can get out of a mix. I only use those on wedding cakes, I make everything else from scratch.

[BROWNSUGA]

I've written this before, but I'll add it again. I do use some cake mixes......for various reasons. Only white cake and yellow cake................I've yet to find perfect recipes for those two flavors that people like better then what I can get out of a mix. I only use those on wedding cakes, I make everything else from scratch.

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I can understand that. Yellow and white have been a challenge in finding the "perfect recipe". I have read the thread on the "best white". How did the "best white" compare to the mixes that you use?

[ldubois2]

There are some family recipies handed down from my grandmother who only used mix cakes that I would not attempt to duplicate from scratch. They are all made in a bundt pan and use apricot nectar, pudding, etc.

I made a rum cake this Christmas several times. Recipe was printed both ways...from scratch or using a mix and pudding mix. Without exception everyone prefered the "scratch" cake. The consistancy and taste were superior.

Next year I'll stick with the "scratch" version and just experiment with flavored rums.

[Shalmanese]

There is a myth, perpetuated by many including Alton Brown and armies of cake decorators, that mixes yield better cakes than from scratch.

Bullshit.

Just keep trying. Egg foams are not easy to pick up and occasionally you are going to have a dud, but keep at it.

Cake from a mix is better than my genoise?

Hell no!

Are you fucken kidding me?

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I'd like to hear more about this. Does anyone know exactly what chemicals do exactly what to cakes that makes AB say that boxed is superior?

Is your objection to boxed mixes because they use inferior ingredients or because of the chemicals inside them or because from scratch is just inherently superior?

If KatieM put her home-made mixes in a box and sold them, would they still be inherently worse than from scratch? What if we got KatieM's mix and doctored it up with all those chemicals that AB claims makes cakes better?

[scordelia]

Last month I did a wedding cake for a woman who wanted Duncan Hines Golden Butter cake mix.  A Big.  Fancy.  Wedding.  It was what she grew up with and what she wanted for her wedding.  She searched high and low and could not find a single baker in NYC to make it for her. 

I did. 

And she LOVED it.  Her guests LOVED it.

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That reminds me of a friend of mine who was having a big fancy wedding in Cincinnati (country club, the works), but she wanted her wedding cake to come from Kroeger's, because all her birthday cakes growing up were bought at Kroeger's. It was a sentimental thing.

Actually, it was a pretty cake (especially when considering the source), and it tasted like birthday cake and we had vanilla ice cream.

[joshalow]

I make the majority of my cakes from scratch. But, recently I have tried 2-3 doctored cake mix recipes- one is a Strawberry cake and they are good. I'll use a cake mix for cupcakes unless I want chocolate cupcakes- then I just use my regular scratch chocolate cake recipe because it is soo easy and soo good.

[mignardise]

Karaoke of Pastry.........too funny!

I agree though.

You can taste a box from a mile way. Chocolate is hard to detect, but White/Yellow you can.

I'm all for scratch.

[claire797]

Maybe the answer really lies in whether or not you are a cake person or a frosting person. For instance, if a mediocre (not, bad -- but not great) cake has a spectacular frosting, then I'm likely to forget how mediocre the cake part was. Given that, I'm not as picky about whether a cake is scratch or box as some others might be. You'll never catch me scraping the frosting of a piece of cake or leaving it behind -- unless it was really nasty frosting. However, I could see myself eating the frosting off and leaving the cake behind.

I wish we could all get together for a big cake taste-off and see how many of use really could taste the box taste .

[hjshorter]

I use a cake mix if I need two dozen cupcakes for a preschool class, tomorrow. For family I make cakes from scratch. The texture of my homemade cakes is rarely as reliable as the box.

Even with a cake mix I always make my own frosting, because buttercream is easy and canned frosting tastes like shortening.

Edited April 23, 2005 by hjshorter (log)

[jgarner53]

Scratch, definitely, with one exception, and even then, one of these days, I will develop a more grown up version of the lemon jello cake my mom always made for me for my birthday that doesn't involve a box of lemon jello and a lemon cake mix.

I stopped making box cakes probably by the time I was 8 or so and ran out of the mixes from my Easy Bake Oven (their cakes were too small anyway). I loved poring through my mom's cookbooks for cake recipes (chocolate was a favorite). I did have a taste for the canned frosting, though, because I didn't like the extra work of melting squares of chocolate for the traditional American powdered sugar-based "buttercream."

I like cakes like genoise because you can control how sweet you make them by how much syrup (and how strong it is) you add. That and the versatility. Take a plain genoise, and you can transform it any number of ways depending on how you flavor the syrup and what you fill the cake with. Try that with a box mix.

[andiesenji]

99% of the time I make cakes from scratch.

However I do keep a couple of boxes of pound cake mix on hand for baking something quick that is going to be used under fruit or custard or whatever, where the flavor of the cake is not so important as the stuff that will be soaking into it.

I use it for an applesauce/applebutter stack cake using very thin layers.

The point is that the flavor of the cake is completely overpowerd by the flavor of the "filling" so the pound cake mix is just fine and saves a considerable amount of time.

[sheetz]

I would often bake cakes (from a mix)  and take them to functions.  People would rave and say how great they were.  Then, the compliments were always followed by "Did you bake that from scratch?"    Well, I didnt know what to say. I didnt want to lie, knowing that I didnt deserve the credit -- Betty Crocker or Duncan Hines did.   

Actually, nowadays in the era of Semi-Homemade cuisine, many people consider boxed mixes to be made "from scratch."

[tejon]

Scratch. I have a Kitchenaid stand mixer, and it takes close to the same amount of time to get out the ingredients and mix them as it does to do the same with a package. I will add that I would much rather have cake made from a mix than canned frosting on anything, from scratch or not. That stuff is truly vile.

[rooftop1000]

I use cake mix all the time especially the lemon .....to make cookies from the Cake DR with poppy seeds I scam from the supermarket bakery.....

open stir plop bake ...lemon poppy cookies in 12.5 min

[alligande]

I only use scratch, I learned to bake from my granmother in England, I had never seen or used a box mix till I came to the states for the first time in the early eighties. Went through a period of using them for my job. I used to be a chef on private yachts and untill I started working on large power boats with "kitchens" not galleys there was no stand mixers therefore no scratch cakes.

That said I went out for dessart the other night to a coffee shop where people love the cake, my companions all raved about the choclate cake, it and the frosting both came from box and can, didnt do anything for me.

I just think that boxes are an aquired taste and to many people cake is the flavour of a boxed mix, its what you get from supermarket bakerys, and many small bakeries as well. (I wish criollo was located near me )

[halloweencat]

wow. i haven't realized this until now, but for years i've been avoiding eating box mix cakes.

in the back of my mind i would be wondering why i didn't like the fanciful creations made by local bakeries, why the birthday cakes catered at the office had no appeal, why someone bringing in cake or cupcakes or whatever didn't tempt me at all.

someone upthread mentioned the cloying taste of box mixes, and frequently the too-sweet taste. +never+ in my mind had i even thought about whether any of these cakes were from mixes or from scratch...i just know that they gave me no gustatory pleasure -- and that's saying a lot, since i really like baked goods.

when i was very young i baked from mixes all the time. then at some point, i discovered a chocolate cake recipie from "the joy of cooking" and without even realizing it, i was at a fork in the road (no pun intended). i haven't made a mix cake for years and years, but i don't even think about it. i have no from-scratch-snobbery. i just stopped making mix cakes because on a basic (and unconcious level) i thought they didn't taste good anymore (or, to flip this ironically...i didn't think +mixes+ were worth the effort anymore).

and i'm not going to say that i can tell a cake mix just by tasting it. i don't know if i can. just looking back at what i've been avoiding all these years...i think they've been mixes. (btw, mark me as one of those folks who does not care for buttercream icing; in general, i find most icings far too sweet.)

this thread has been un petite revelation.

cheers :)

hc

Edited April 24, 2005 by halloweencat (log)

[CompassRose]

I've never used a boxed cake mix, ever, except for the one for No Pudge Brownies (which I like, cos I can make one, single brownie if I have a craving).

I don't like boxed mixes. That weird sweet taste, the funny kind of noncrumb dissolve-in-the-mouth quality -- bleeeyuch. I tend to like a heartier, European kind of cake, and actually really enjoy my own foolings around with whole-grain cake baking.

And I loathe that horrid "buttercream" made of white shortening and sugar more than I can even describe. I do not get the appeal of that stuff, at all.

[Paris M]

From scratch for me. I grew up on mixes and thought that making a cake from scratch was "too hard." Then my college roommate whipped up a sheet cake in the same time that it would take me to use a mix so I asked me to teach me and I've been doing it from scratch ever since. Plus, most mixes use partially-hydrogenated _______, something I work very hard to avoid; give me butter or give me death!

[ludja]

I grew up on home made cakes, and lots of them were European in style--denser, finer crumb, ground nuts, etc. I've never really liked the taste or texture of cakes mixes; people have described the difference pretty well above. (and forget canned frostings). So it's not been something I've done. (I do think that people's taste can be affected if that's what they grew up with--i.e. to like the texture and certain *other* taste of cake mixes better).

I tend to make cakes with butter; not oil, so I'm not sure if some of what I associate with cakes mixes is the texture/flavor of using oil.

When and if I have kids maybe I could see it if as someone mentioned above I needed to whip up some cupcakes at the last minute, but probably I'd find a reliable recipe and perhaps even make up my own dry "mix" at home to have at hand. (I've done that with cornbread and it has worked out really well).

My mom did have one "doctored" cake mix recipe that she made alot and that I have continued to make--it was called "whiskey cake". Uses a plain yellow cake mix, vanilla pudding, whiskey, walnuts and butterscotch chips. It uses butter rather than oil. (It's a great long-lasting coffee cake, sturdy enough to bring along for a week at a cottage or the beach).

Edited April 25, 2005 by ludja (log)

[andiesenji]

When and if I have kids maybe I could see it if as someone mentioned above I needed to whip up some cupcakes at the last minute, but probably I'd find a reliable recipe and perhaps even make up my own dry "mix" at home to have at hand.  (I've done that with cornbread and it has worked out really well).

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I have a basic cookie mix I make up in 10 quart batches, however it has to be kept refrigerated.

It does make it easier to scoop out the number of cups I require and add the "wet" ingredients.

I can put together a batch of cookie dough in a tenth of the time and can have them baking in the time that usually would be spent just gathering the ingredients.

[lancastermike]

Cakes from scratch are all I make. I like watching people eat it when I take one someplace. They know it is different, and some are not sure if it is better or worse. My scratch layer cakes are lighter and have a more open crumb than box mixes. I think beating the egg whites and folding them into batter at the last makes a differnce, though I have read cake books that claim no benefit is derived by this method

[claire797]

Cakes from scratch are all I make.  I like watching people eat it when I take one someplace.  They know it is different, and some are not sure if it is better or worse.  My scratch layer cakes are lighter and have a more open crumb than box mixes.  I think beating the egg whites and folding them into batter at the last makes a differnce, though I have read cake books that claim no benefit is derived by this method

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Guess it depends on what recipe, right? I have a scratch recipe that involves folding in beaten egg whites, and it's definitely one of my best scratch white cakes. I'm surprised a cake book would say it "makes no difference" whether you fold in whites, because adding egg whites to a batter (you'd think, right?) would make a cake lighter and airier. My best scratch cake recipes involve 3 things.

1) bringing all ingredients to room temperature (something I must plan ahead of time)

2) sifting, sifting sifting (something messy, which I don't enjoy, which leads to more cleaning)

3) and using beaten egg whites, which leads to more appliances and more cleaning

Doing those 3 steps gets me the results I'm looking for, but including those 3 things is NOT *as* or even close to as convenient as dumping a box of cake mix in a bowl and beating it up with oil, eggs and water.

[hjshorter]

I tend to make cakes with butter; not oil, so I'm not sure if some of what I associate with cakes mixes is the texture/flavor of using oil.

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There are several cake mixes now that call for butter instead of oil.

[arbuclo]

I don't bake a lot of cakes but when I do it's from scratch. I love the experience of making from scratch and I know what's in it. I'd lose out on the experience of it if I used a mix. The only exception is angel food cake. I can't be bothered breaking all those eggs and then trying to figure out what to do with all the left over yolks, so I use a box. (Not that I do that very often since I can only find angel food cake mix in the US and don't get back that often.)