Duncan Hines Cake Mix and Frosting

Yet you ate the entire cake.

[quote]But it tastes like packing material.

Did you leave it out in the rain at some point?

There are several cookbooks that have recipes for using cake mixes and adding ingredients to improve the flavor. Things like a tablespoon of mayo, two tablespoons of cake flour, 1/4 teaspoon of some flavored extract, etc.

I've done the mayo thing, and it makes any mix more moist, since it's made of eggs and oil basically, plus a little vinegar or lemon juice. Also applesauce instead of oil, but I only liked that in a spice cake mix, because the flavors were compatible. I don't know for sure about the others, but I've looked at some of the books and they look like they would kick up the mix to higher level result.

I've never used a commercial frosting. It's mostly shortening, and I can make several fabulous kinds of icing out of almost nothing.

It was actually this one: fudge marble mix, with dark chocolate frosting.

It looks good, anyway.

NOT WITHOUT MY FROSTING!

PS; there's probably about 25% of the frosting left over in the can, even after a generous amount used on the cake.

I cannot imagine eating the frosting out of the can. Seriously: it's a little repulsive.

[quote]R3 There are several cookbooks that have recipes for using cake mixes and adding ingredients to improve the flavor.

Sandra Lee can help with this.

[quote]I cannot imagine eating the frosting out of the can.

There's another way to eat it?

R7, I forgot about her! How hilarious.

I started baking my own cakes from scratch years ago. Now I can't go back. When I do have a piece of boxed-mix cake it is exactly as OP says: light fluffy texture, but no flavor -and the frosting is overly sweet. I don't think the cake mixes have changed much, but my tastes sure have!

BTW - Back in the 1980s most boxed mixes used combinations of lard/animal shortening. Duncan Hines was the only brand routinely suitable for vegetarians. You still need to look out for frozen pie crusts and pastry cakes if you want to avoid the animal fat.

To add to what R3 said, it's not very hard to make a cake and frosting from a few ingredients in your kitchen and it will taste much, much better than a mix and canned frosting because you can use actual butter, which is much better for you than the hydrogenated fat mystery chemicals they put in mixes.

i like the spice cak.

You had the makings of a dump cake, OP!

My mom would make box mix cake, but always make her own frosting. Anyone else?

I love CAK

Mine too, r14. Though I didn’t care for my mom’s frosting (too sweet and buttery) so I’d try to get to the cake before she frosted it

Most cakes are pretty easy to make. There’s not that many more ingredients than if you use box mix. Same with frosting. I haven’t made a box mix cake since I was a kid.

A friend, however, does have rum cake recipe that starts with a mix which he embellishes in some way (aside from the rum) that makes it a favorite at any party he brings it to.

Get the cake mix with the pudding in it, it really makes a difference!

If you can't make a simple cake and frosting from scratch, I don't know what to tell you.

For cake mixes, Duncan Hines is the best. They also make the best brownies mix (along with Ghirardelli).

[quote] A friend, however, does have rum cake recipe that starts with a mix which he embellishes in some way (aside from the rum) that makes it a favorite at any party he brings it to.

My mom made that rum cake, too. It was a Bacardi recipe. It did involve a yellow (Duncan Hines) cake mix and a box of instant pudding. It was delicious. Bundt pan.

Here's the Bacardi rum cake recipe.

[quote]My mom would make box mix cake, but always make her own frosting. Anyone else?

Same here, R14. But one day she decided she should make a homemade cake, as well, so she got out her cookbook and followed the recipe. For me, it didn't taste as good as the boxed cake. The texture was more dense than the fluffy cake from a mix.

Are you the same poster who has to pee all the time, OP?

FAT WHOREZ ^

Canned frosting tastes like the plastic container to me.

Agree with all the posters who say bake and frost from scratch. If you're going to pig out, make on something really GOOD. It's not that different than using a box mix and you can make any flavor you want any time.

[quote]For me, it didn't taste as good as the boxed cake. The texture was more dense than the fluffy cake from a mix.

That's why box cake makers add all those chemicals to cake mixes, so they're "fluffy," or "moist," which they have convinced Americans is what a cake needs to be. I prefer a scratch cake, which to your taste may be drier and denser. Here's a recipe for my favorite yellow cake, the 1-2-3-4 cake, from Alice Waters' [italic]The Art of Simple Food[/italic]. I'd love to know how some of you who expect a cake to be "moist" or "fluffy" find it.

Fat whores, lament!

I was a child when I found box cakes superior to the ones my mother made from scratch, R26. I would like to think my tastes are a bit more sophisticated now.

I refuse to purchase or consume any product that uses the word “moist” as a selling point.

Would you reconsider for a “Moist bonus hole” r29 ?

I guess it depends what you're used to. I like boxed cake mixes better than most bakery cakes, but frosting in a can or a tube is inedible to me.

My mother was very frank about not being a baker. She would use cake mix for the cake and make a buttercream frosting (powdered sugar whipped with butter and vanilla, plus melted baker's chocolate if you wanted.) On Christmas she'd make her version of a Black Forest torte: devil's food cake from a mix, cut the layers in half and spread them with whipped cream and candied cherries.

I'd rather eat a Twinkie.

R26, I made a 1234 cake a few weeks ago for the first time, had never made a scratch cake before, and it DID seem heavy and dry at first. But it is obviously superior. I made my own icing too, and that was also much better. Now that I'm working from home, I have more time to cook, and I realize that 90% of the grocery store is fucking garbage.

Bakery cakes are the biggest nothing. You can at least doctor up a mix.

If you look at box cake mixes, the first ingredient is always sugar. You’re not going to have a good cake with sugar as first ingredient.

Has anyone noticed that people who are hyper-judgey about eating "the best!" ingredients à la Martha Stewart or the healthiest ingredients à la "what not to eat" advice will eat absolutely anything at all in restaurants, not knowing the sourcing, not caring about fat or sodium or anything else.

I've worked with a few people who go on and on and on about their healthful diets and then buy any cardiac killer from the newest food truck for lunch and drink five margaritas with salt and a platter of cheese fries at happy hour. They'll lecture that "you shouldn't eat that!" and then tell you to loosen up if you even [italics] intimate [/italics] that they may be a gluttonous alcoholic in another setting.

It amuses me. People truly change their personalities and righteous standards like they change socks, depending on the time and place.

R14 Yes, my mom would make frosting from Hershey’s cocoa, confectionary sugar and butter. Maybe there was milk in there, too?

R36 That's false. It's flour. A cake that's primarily sugar would be...frosting.

The corn syrup and preservatives are icky though.

Enriched Flour Bleached (Wheat Flour, Niacin, Iron, Thiamin Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Sugar, Corn Syrup, Leavening (Baking Soda, Sodium Aluminum Phosphate, Monocalcium Phosphate). Contains 2% or Less of: Modified Corn Starch, Cinnamon, Palm Oil, Corn Starch, Spices, Propylene Glycol Mono and Diesters of Fatty Acids, Salt, Distilled Monoglycerides, Dicalcium Phosphate, Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, Xanthan Gum, Cellulose Gum, Color Added.

R28 Mine too! It's my favorite. I miss my mommy.

[quote]Yes, my mom would make frosting from Hershey’s cocoa, confectionary sugar and butter. Maybe there was milk in there, too?

My mother made chocolate frosting the same way. I remember her adding a bit of milk to make it easier to spread.

Yep, helps to add some milk.

R41 The Hershey’s cocoa made it rich! She made hot chocolate with it, too: milk, cocoa, sugar and a pinch of salt.

I haven’t seen these in years but she also made these Bundt cakes (from a mix) that had a little filling packet. Those she would use her frosting recipe but use more milk to make it a glaze. I remember them being so good! Not sure if they were or it was just my childish tastes.

Several years ago, my ma-in-law was at a small local rehab hospital after surgery. Since I knew she liked them, I whomped up a dozen or so Duncan Hines yellow cupcakes with Betty Crocker canned chocolate frosting, figuring she could share them with the nurses and other staff.

As I was visiting, one of the nurses came in for some reason or other and I offered her a cupcake, which she happily accepted. She devoured it and took a second. Then another. Yes, and then a fourth.

"These are the best cupcakes I've ever eaten," she said. "Would you ever share the recipe?"

She absolutely didn't believe me when I told her the cupcakes were Duncan Hines, and I do believe she thought I was guarding a cherished family recipe.

When I picked MIL up from the facility a few days later, I gave the nurse a dozen cupcakes of her very own, along with a box of Duncan Hines yellow cake mix and a can of Betty Crocker chocolate frosting.

I'll bet she weighs 400 pounds by now.

r39, here's the ingredient list for Duncan Hines' Perfectly Moist Classic Yellow Cake Mix. The first ingredient listed is sugar.

Try the "Nana's Devil's Food Cake" recipe, which uses a cup of coffee as one of the ingredients.

That recipe @r46 is pretty much the same as the chocolate cake recipe on the Hershey Cocoa packag- the soda/powder ratios are different, but the total measurement is the same. I made a half batch into cupcakes the other night. Covered them in dulce de leche.

As a child my mother only made cakes from boxed mixes with frosting from powdered sugar. I was so disappointed when I had a homemade cake because it was so dense and dry. It takes getting used to.

She'd occasionally use the boxed frosting mixes with more exotic flavors. Just added butter and milk. I don't think they make them anymore. They tasted much better than canned.

You gays eat fatty foods. Wow.

I always thought Betty Crocker was more bitch’n! She had a bitch’n kitchen and had the steely 50’s housedress to match!

R39 no, it’s sugar not flour as first/ main ingredient. I’ve looked at so-called non-supermarket brands and most of them have sugar as main ingredients.

Same, R48. I still don't like bakery cakes.

And R45, that is disgusting. I feel sorry for Wal-Mart shoppers. Not that only Wal-Mart sells that shit, but your link is a great reminder that poorer people are acculturated to eat a lot of toxic trash.

I don't know what brand my family bought. I feel like it was Betty Crocker. I know it was a lot of the time, at least, but I don't know if they also bought Duncan Hines. I do remember my mom always used Betty Crocker brownie mixes and hated Duncan Hines.

I forgot to add that at some point the manufacturers started putting less mix in the box. This was around the late 70s/early 80s l. You know how they started to make candy bars smaller? Same idea except he cakes started to turn out flatter in the standard 9 inch pan and looked nothing like the pictures on the boxes. You either had to add baking powder and soda or move to 8 inch pans.

To everyone who talks about homemade cakes being dry, I'm telling you, throw a big ol' serving spoonful of mayonnaise into the batter and it will be moist! Miracle Whip works the same, and you can't really tell a difference in flavor, anyway.

I'm not trolling, despite knowing that using the M-word on DL is tantamount to throwing gasoline on a fire.

I learned that trick from my great-grandmother who died when I was 6 years old.

R51 Not Betty Crocker. Flour. But then sugar and corn syrup.

What other cake mix brands do stores usually sell?

Ingredients on packages have to be listed in order of weight, not volume. I would imagine many scratch recipes would also have sugar as their first ingredient if listed that way.

The only cakes I ever make are carrot cake, and cheesecake,, and they're from scratch. I have no issue with a box mix, but it's the canned frosting I hate. A well-made fresh buttercream is absolutely heaven, and doesn't take long to make.

My grandmother always preferred Duncan Hines, because she said they always had the perfect moist texture when finished. They used to have an Almond Amaretto (discontinued) that was absolutely fantastic as far as cake mixes go.

I REALLY want to try my hand at a Black Forrest Torte, but it will have to wait until next cherry season. In the meantime, I'm going to do another cheesecake...probably Peppermint Pattie or Raspberry White Chocolate, with chocolate crust.

The first cheesecake I ever made was a caramel apple cheesecake. A coworker liked it so much, she told me to keep the pan I borrowed from her, in order to bake it. I partially substituted crushed pretzels in the crust, because it would've been ENTIRELY too sweet, otherwise.

Anyway, rock on with the box mix if ye must, just make the frosting from scratch.

I almost always hate almond flavoring. But my brother-in-law made a very dark chocolate cake with almost black dark chocolate ganache and he accidentlally put in way too much almond extract and somehow it became so strong that I loved it combined with the chocolate.

R58 That sounds excellent, actually.

You know what’s good? Those real Italian rainbow cookies with the marzipan. They’re kind of hard to find these days.

Here's a link a friend recently shared with me. It ABSOLUTELY cracks me up that Hershey's beat out Martha Stewart. I absolutely detest Hershey's chocolate, with the exception of the Peppermint Pattie (enough with the controlled lipolysis, and butyric acid, already!). The winner? Ina Garten's "Beatty's Chocolate Cake".

There's a southern Hershey's melted frosting that is great.

This looks like it.

R61 - Martha Stewart's recipes are consistently rated lower than comparable recipes on other sites. It puzzled me so I started a thread about it.

Was Betty Crocker childless? More of a career woman?

OP, if you had made a few changes you could have had a cake most would have assumed was scratch made.

To do this...

Add an additional large egg to the mixture

Add one package of Jello Instant Pudding powder (that most closely matches the flavor cake) to the batter

Omit the oil, and add twice the amount called for in the recipe in butter

You can lighten the canned frosting by whipping it and then folding in a cup of whipped heavy cream. That will lighten both the texture and the sweetness. You will have to keep the cake in the fridge if you use whipped cream in the frosting though.

Nice touches, R65, but it will probably still taste like chemicals. Better to just start from scratch.

[quote]You know what’s good? Those real Italian rainbow cookies with the marzipan. They’re kind of hard to find these days.

Valerie Bertinelli made those on her show once.

[quote] Nice touches, [R65], but it will probably still taste like chemicals. Better to just start from scratch.

Yes, scratch is always better. But once in a while you find you don't have enough flour or sugar to make a scratch cake and you don't want to run to the market, but you've got a couple box mixes in the pantry. And trust me, a box cake made with these tricks has no weird taste at all.

If most people knew that most bakery cakes are made from box mixes they'd be shocked. Even high end bakeries use box mixes.

Ina G.’s chocolate cake recipe is the best I have made. Espresso powder, coffee, buttermilk. It is divine.

Speaking of Betty Crocker... this is their best product, in my opinion. I make it with melted butter instead of oil, and I add vanilla. I have brought them to potlucks and watched them vanish in minutes.

I hope you add twice the amount in butter as called for in oil R70. You have to do that because butter contains a lot of water.

At a minimum, you should make your own buttercream frosting. It's pretty easy even w/o an electric mixer and the result is so much better than the stuff in a can.

I always use Duncan Hines. Believe it or not of all the boxed cake mixes I think it's the best. But I always "doctor up" the cakes. I put dry instant chocolate pudding mix with my chocolate cake, and add chocolate chips. It is delicious. I use either a spice cake or carrot cake mix, and chop up apples, or grated zucchini, or smash up a banana and add pecans and I love it. Now All of these are baked in a bundt pan because making layer cakes os just too much trouble. Bottom line, Use boxed cake mixes as a starting point and always add something. There are recipes all over the internet.

Fat frau ^

R3 I haven't added mayonnaise but I've added sour cream.

Boxed cakes and canned frosting are both disgusting. The cake tastes like a flavorless sponge and canned frosting tastes like rancid edible oil product.

I have stated my boundaries.

Without box mixes, how would you make those fabulous dump cakes?

[quote]Boxed cakes and canned frosting are both disgusting. The cake tastes like a flavorless sponge and canned frosting tastes like rancid edible oil product.

You sound fun.

He’s right r78

Boxed cake mixes are disgusting. It’s totally easy to bake a cake from scratch. It’s just that Americans are lazy retards.

[quote]Boxed cake mixes are disgusting. It’s totally easy to bake a cake from scratch. It’s just that Americans are lazy retards.

You're a charmer, you are. Those homemade cakes certainly aren't sweetening your disposition.

You all eat (and type) fat. All those bad carbs. Yuck!

I think a lot of us have fond memories of box cakes because we grew up making them or our moms did. When you’re young any sugary cakes taste good. It’s not until older when you develop more sophisticated taste buds that you know the difference between box mix cake and a nice one made from scratch using good ingredients.

Canned frosting is so yummers that I didn't think twice about ruining daddy's relationship!

If you like cake-mix cakes, you'll love cake-mix cookies!

I'm no fat Frau. I'm a Eldergay (63) and so what if I gained 8 pounds since fucking February. BTW: You can make some great cookies using a boxed cake mix.

Call me lazy, but I just don't feel like going thru the elaborate exercise of assembling everything and going thru a process when it's all ready in a box. Getting cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, vanilla other flavorings, butter, Mayo , cocoa, WTF ever and you cream the butter, add the sugar,and sift the dry ingredients and put the room temperature eggs in one at a time, then alternate combining the wet and t,he dry, and etc.etc.etc. Fuck it.

I used these tricks the last time I made a boxed cake and it was really good:

- replaced the water with milk

- replaced the oil with the same amount of melted butter

- added an extra egg

You can't really find a good canned frosting anymore, but frosting is the easy part of making a cake. I'm a terrible baker when I bake from scratch which is why I use a box, but I can do frosting.

The best frostings I've found are the cream cheese chocolate one from the Bon Appetit recipe for Easy Sheet Cake with Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting, and the one from the Yellow Birthday Cupcakes recipe on Sally's Baking Addiction.

I forgot something. There are four things I do to a boxed cake mix that makes it better: - replaced the water with milk

- replaced the oil with the same amount of melted butter

- added an extra egg

- added 3 T of mayo (I've heard sour cream works really well for this in chocolate cakes)

Like baking a simple cake is so hard r86.

Whatever. White trash is gonna white trash.

Excuse me...my comment was meant for the hillbilly at r85

During quarantine last spring I was craving chocolate so I made a Duncan Hines mix. It tasted like a freshly made stale cake. Awful.

Bakeries can be fun!

You gays with sugar addictions should suck on my Jello Puddin' Pop!

I wish one of you bakers would make me a lemon cake.

It's easy to make one yourself, R93, provided you use this Duncan Hines mix.

r93, google "Ina Garten lemon cake." She has several.

[quote] R86 replaced the oil with the same amount of melted butter

That's not enough butter. You should double the amount of butter because butter has a lot of water in it. So by replacing the oil with butter one to one you're not putting enough fat into the batter.

r96 Doubling it would be excessive. Butter is 80% fat; oil is 100%.

I forgot to mention I added mayo as well at R86, so between that and the butter, it was enough fat in the mix.

Cake flour may account for some of the difference between box-mix and homemade cakes. Cake flour has less protein (gluten) than all-purpose or bread flour.

One recommended substitute for cake flour involves placing two tablespoons of cornstarch in a 1-cup measuring cup, then filling the rest of the cup with flour and doing this for each cup of flour in the recipe. Cornstarch dilutes the protein in all-purpose flour, which results in a lighter cake with a flakier crumb.

Using caster sugar, which almost as fine as powdered sugar, will also result in a lighter cake. You can make caster sugar using a blender.

Caster sugar in commonly available in the US. I buy it at WINCO all the time. Albertsons has it as well.

If you want chocolate frosting, you have to make it yourself. I only trust cream cheese and white frostings from a canister.

I filled the pantries at the White House with cake mixes. They are still there and hadn't been used in decades until President Trump moved in. I've heard he loves a cake made from a mix after a hearty meal of KFC.

Actually to properly make your own cake flour you should remove 2 Tbs of flour from each 1 cup measure and replace with 2 Tbs of cornstarch. Then you must sift it 3 times to insure the cornstarch is adequately mixed into the flour.

r99 It's often labeled as superfine or baking sugar in the US.

I'm learning so much! I might make Mother a cake for Thanksgiving and leave it on her porch.

Is the basement exterior access only, r105?

R78 and r80 = WT who grew up on canned chemical filled food and wonder bread.

I amazed about terrible pre-made frosting usually is. It's like they threw in an entire bucket of sugar. And then there's a terrible, bitter aftertaste

But your cans of parsleyed potatoes are STILL there, Mamie.

This thread is why I love us.

Canned frosting on its own is indeed nasty and ridiculously sweet. But there are ways to doctor it and turn it into something edible.

Bad carbs. Gross. How do you do the vomit emoji?

I never buy eggs or shortening/cooking oil. So when I make a boxed cake I use a cup of greek yogurt, a cup of honey and a cup of water or juice. And it turns out just about the same.

It's cool because you can change the flavor of a cake with the yogurt. White cake? Use coconut flavored yogurt. Yellow cake? Make it banana. Chocolate? Black cherry yogurt.

"Canned frosting... there are ways to doctor it and turn it into something edible"

Whip it together with Cool Whip or marshmallow creme or cream cheese.

OK, I'm not much of a baker so I doctor up a cake mix, and I use the bundt pan and fuck you, you can make fun of me, but they're the easiest to use, and I stick the canned frosting in the micro wave for about 20 seconds, then I pour it over the cake...which I have poked holes in with a toothpick. So the one that works is the chocolate, and I will also shave some good quality chocolate over that or some chopped nuts. It works out well for me.

All of us must have election fatigue, because amazingly, this thread is already over 115 posts. my, my.

Some people simply aren't into scratch cooking. There's nothing wrong with that. I don't begrudge them a boxed cake, especially if they use the tricks to make it better. If it makes them happy then it's all good.

You can add some diced pineapple and shredded coconut to a boxed yellow cake mix and turn out something that is very nice.

70's moms started working and had no time to sift and measure. Fuck yourself you judgmental "WT" cunt.

Get a new hobby besides trolling message boards.

Now, that is WT...

or mental.

It’s 2020 cunt ^

Intelligent people expect better than highly processed boxed shit.

Making a simple snack cake is easy. Boxed cakes prove you are not loved. Your mom didn’t love you r119. That’a your problem.

R115 I wouldn't make fun of anyone giving easy advice to enhance something like a box cake mix... It sounds like you took the time to make it your own, and it probably looks great too with the hot drizzle method... Same for R86, and R65, and others.

Like R119 said, not everyone has time for a scratch cake, or their mums never did. I've made excellent boxed vanilla cake with brown butter ghee, an extra egg yolk, and vanilla extract. I can, and do make cakes from scratch, but often turn to mix as well. Unrefined coconut oil gives excellent results in white and chocolate cake as well... I'm sure it would be ideal in any sort of coconut cake as well.

Duncan Hines is way more homemade than Little Debbie.

The last time I used a box mix was to make a Harvey Walllbanger cake for a 70s theme night party I was catering. While there are scratch recipes available, in order to be truly authentic I used orange cake mix as called for in the original recipe. It was the most commented on (favorably) thing in the menu.

get a new hobby or check your meds, r120.

get a new hobby or check your meds, r120.

I'd rather eat a Hostess snowball. You gay cakemakers are so complicated. FU!

How does it feel to be white trash?

Gay cakemakers love coming to threads like this so they can let everyone know how superior they are to the poor unsophisticated shlubs whose lives are so empty and meaningless that they actually use boxed cake mixes.

It's a fucking cake. Get over yourselves, you pretentious twats.

Op eats cak from a box!

[quote]Op eats cak from a box!

And graxy from a jar.

R93 I've made that DH Lemon cake R94 posted... It's delicious. The only mistake I made was buying Betty Crocker Lemon frosting; I can't recommend it. There wasn't a DH Lemon version on the shelf. It's probably better.

Reading this thread gave me in eyegasm.

Can't do any better than boxed golden cake mix and chocolate frosting. Bakery cake has less taste than water and the frosting sucks.

Please do NOT let this come between all of us, like that demonic draining pasta thread.

Cakes are about LOVE. Not division and hate.

R128, if you really want to see down and dirty, wait until the argument that breaks out when someone says only Philistines use measuring cups, real bakers weigh their ingredients by the gram.

Does Wal Mart bakery actually have better cake or is it basically cak from a box? Their cakes are so cheap

[quote]Duncan Hines is way more homemade than Little Debbie.

Yeah, but Little Debbie is a bigger ho than Duncan.

That strawberry cake at R99 looks so good!

That’s an understatement, r137.

R138 It DOES look good. I've only eaten once today, and this food porn thread isn't doing much for my resolve.

I wanna tie up R140 and cover him in gross frosting and stick him on an ant hill.

They taste way better than those awful sheet cakes some bakeries make, with that awful frosting.

I wonder if Betty Crocker and Duncan Hines ever met in person.

I was 15 when I first tried to make a cake. It was a 2 layer cake with frosting in between the layers. Pretty ambitious for my first time. I didn't know you had to let the cake cool completely before frosting it. I frosted it while it was still warm. It was beautiful and I was so proud of it. It looked like the picture on the box. I left the kitchen and came back 15 minutes later and the top layer was on the floor.

[quote]I wonder if Betty Crocker and Duncan Hines ever met in person.

Well, only one of them was a real person.

[quote] I wanna tie up [R140] and cover him in gross frosting and stick him on an ant hill.

Covered in honey?

[quote]Well, only one of them was a real person.

And it wasn't Betty.

I love a vanilla coconut cake. I’m thinking of ordering one online for the holidays. Nothing I bake comes out that great... I blame my oven.

Well, I blame YOU.

[quote]Nothing I bake comes out that great... I blame my oven.

Is it one of these?

Excellent, R63. I'll take a look.

I’m on a diet and starting to exercise again after being so depressed and out of shape because of COVID “lockdown”, and this thread is like the pusher on the street corner chasing after a junkie who’s been clean for 2 months.

I want to eat ALL of these cakes.

[quote]only Philistines use measuring cups, real bakers weigh their ingredients by the gram

Okay well I have to weigh in here, chaos be damned, because Bronze Age Gay in another thread about cookies suggested I weigh my flour out instead of going by cup measurements, and he was 100% right!

The recipe said 2 cups of flour or 250 grams of flour, and it turned out 250 grams was only about 1 1/2 cups of the brand of flour I had. My cookies went from being puffy little tea cakes to being actual cookies.

Weigh your flour, gays!

r144 As a very young gayling I wanted to make a cake for my brother's birthday. It was a beautiful chocolate bundt cake over which I slathered chocolate frosting, and queer little me decorated it with a ring of Hershey's Kisses. Upon completion I put my masterpiece under one of those vintage 50's aluminum cake domes. At serving time I put the uncovered cake in the center of the table for all present to admire. Removing the lid, I saw to my horror that not only had the kisses melted, most of the frosting had slipped off onto the plate. Obviously I had frosted a too-warm cake, and then insulated what was by then a scary-looking mess under that dome.

Let's just say I was reminded of this event at many a family gathering.

r153 😊

I made R84's cookie recipe and they were horrible! I followed the recipe exactly and didn't change a thing except:

Seasoned breadcrumbs for the cake mix, aioli instead of oil, and I didn't have any raw eggs so I used some egg salad that I had left over.

It was a terrible recipe and I think R84 should reimburse me.

I recently made a yellow cake with chocolate frosting from a box and a can. I did find the frosting way too sweet. I cut it with cream cheese frosting from a can - which was less sweet, but still too sweet, so I added in about 3 big tablespoons of sour cream, and that just about brought the frosting to a tolerable level of sweetness - so yes, to those who complain that canned frosting is too sweet.

But there is a delicious cake to be made with yellow box cake. It's called Rhubarb custard cake. You make a batter from a yellow box cake according to instructions. Pour the batter into a 13X9. Add about 4 cups of rhubarb stalks cut into dices from your garden and sprinkle them evenly over the batter. Sprinkle sugar over the rhubarb (about 1 cup, but it really depends on how sour your rhubarb is) Then pour 2 cups of heavy whipping cream over the rhubarb and bake for about an hour. The rhubarb sinks to the bottom but makes a delicious custard there with the cream, and the top firms up into a golden brown cake. I can't begin to describe how delicious this is. I'm sure it's about 1000 calories/bite, so you can only eat this once a year, but it's well worth it. I'm linking a similar recipe below.

The only success I've had with using cake mix for cookies was when making chocolate crinkle cookies with a Duncan Hines fudge cake mix. Otherwise it has just never worked out.

There are bags of cookie mix you can get in the cake mix aisle, you might as well use those instead of trying to get a cake mix to make a cookie.

Maggiano's "Vera's Lemon Cookies" are made with lemon cake mix.

"You can add some diced pineapple and shredded coconut to a boxed yellow cake mix and turn out something that is very nice."

A granola bar?

Way back in the day, we used Duncan Hines Double-Fudge Brownie Mix for the best pot brownies.

1. Put an ounce of dried weed in a blender and pulverize it into a powder. If it's too dry, add an egg or some mayo.

2. Add to the brownie mix and bake as instructed.

3. Cool. Eat. Be fucked up for hours.

Yes, I know they don't do it that way anymore, but we didn't know any better, we didn't have internet then, and pot was generally around $10 a "lid" (ounce). The really awesome stuff was about $35.

Oops! Don't add the egg or mayo until after adding the pot to the mix. I'm high.

[quote] Does Wal Mart bakery actually have better cake or is it basically cak from a box?

Pretty much all cakes sold in bakeries, even high end bakeries, are made from box mixes. But they know tricks to make them better.

Is there any thread you can't work marijuana into, 160/161?

You could put me on Ignore if you don't want to see it, R163.

R150, I'm convinced the EZ Bake oven is why so many people have cancer. Baking a cake with a light bulb is not a good idea.

Supermarket bakeries are garbage, generally speaking. But the exception IMO is Publix. Their cakes are to die for. SO GOOD. Their breads and rolls, their pies, exceptional. Not joking. But for Lemon frosting, R131 I have these tiny bottles of lemon extract, orange extract, almond extract, etc. and I just add a few drops to the frosting mix, of to a cake mix. I try not to get too fancy, just stick to the basics. For example, I can't stand red velvet cake. Boxed, supermarket bakery or scratch, they're way too sweet. My go to's are Dark Chocolate, Yellow, Spice and Carrot. With the Spice or carrot, I will shred some zucchini add pecans etc and it's delicious. With Spice I do the same or chop up some Granny smiths and add walnuts. and raisins. I try to only use chocolate or vanilla cream cheese icing and then I can doctor it up. You know it takes two seconds to grate some orange or lemon, and add a couple of drops of extract. Not hard at all.

I like Target baked goods. Especially their muffins. Of course, now that I’ve discovered them, they have disappeared from the Target in my neighborhood.

I make muffins using Kodiak protein pancake mix. I add dates and coconut. Halve the sugar and replace it with sucralose. My go to indulgence these days.

This is where I order my cakes from. Best cake ever!! I haven't baked a cake ever. Caroline does it all for me and tastes like the cakes my grandma used to make.

Those look really good R168. Which ones do you order?

The 7 Layer Southern Chocolate is so good. So is the Hot Cocoa Cake, Devil's Food Traditional, Chocolate Cloud, and the Coconut Cake.

R1167, I often use an overripe banana, mash it up and add that to the Spice Cake boxed mix. It adds sweetness and flavor. A dash of cinnamon, ground cloves and nutmeg. Use very sparingly, but with the banana and the shredded zucchini and some pecans, it's so good. Same with the chopped apple version.

R120 Our defensive friend also doesn’t know what WT means. Poor stupid idiot.

For a number of us, r172, "WT" refers to the soap opera As the World Turns, often shortened to "World Turns."

Posters should be required to take a photo with their cake 🎂 for fat shaming purposes!

R170 if you recommend, I’ll try. I need to send my uncle and aunt a nice dessert for Christmas.

[quote]I'm convinced the EZ Bake oven is why so many people have cancer. Baking a cake with a light bulb is not a good idea.

Yes, because so many people have consumed so many cakes from EZ Bake ovens over the years.

Hahaha my oven really does suck! I’m serious!

Real men (tops) don't eat quiche...or cake. 0

r168 Don't patronize businesses in South Carolina.

I baked a Lady Baltimore cake!

Just replace the oil with twice the measurement in butter then add a ¾ cup of AP flour to the mix (cake mix, water and eggs)

Do DH or BC still make the boxed powdered frosting mixes? I can't find any in local grocery stores. They were so much better than the canned versions.

Doesn't adding the instant pudding make the cake too sweet? Instant also has a chemically aftertaste.

[quote]I baked a Lady Baltimore cake!—Helen Potts

Lady Baltimore cake is also a specialty of the Brewster sisters in "Arsenic and Old Lace." No arsenic in it, though.

R183, when I was in a community theater production of Picnic, our stage manager made one for the company, and it was wonderful.

R183, when I was in a community theater production of Picnic, our stage manager made one for the company, and it was wonderful.

[quote]Do DH or BC still make the boxed powdered frosting mixes?

Canned frosting pretty much drove frosting mixes off the market. I don't think Betty Crocker, Pillsbury or Duncan Hines offers them anymore. Amazon has a couple of frosting mixes available, but not from major brands. But homemade buttercream and chocolate frosting aren't much more difficult to make than frostings from a powdered mix.

What are those mixes made of? Powdered shortening?

Yeah. I figured the frosting mixes are totally gone. Scratch is great for buttercream or chocolate, but if I want something different like strawberry or banana once in a blue moon, it's cheaper than buying an extract that will sit unused for ages.

R87 - You add softened butter and milk to the mix.

Ah, I see, R188. That's just silly. There's no reason to buy that over powdered sugar.

It's a bag of chemicals!

The amazing Chocoflan, a hybrid of cake and flan, which magically trade places during the baking process! I didn't believe it worked until I baked one for myself.

Betty Crocker and Pillsbury still make boxed frosting mixes. Even Trader Joe's has one.

Wow, I had no idea about the boxed frosting mixes.

[quote] You gays eat fatty foods. Wow. —Svelte Frau

[quote] You all eat (and type) fat. All those bad carbs. Yuck! —Marine Gym

[quote]You gays with sugar addictions should suck on my Jello Puddin' Pop! —Bill Cosby

[quote]Real men (tops) don't eat quiche...or cake. 0 —Golds Gym Trainer

I don’t know if these are all from the same person, but whoever you are, I love you. The shaming and insults are the icing on this big fat threadcake. “Real men (tops)” KILLED me.

R189 - There is reason if you want to make frosting other than chocolate or vanilla BC. It's cheaper to buy a box than an overpriced flavoring extract you won't use again for eons.

Is the flavoring extract really THAT expensive? Which extracts are we talking about?

How is it with all the culinary and bakery advancements that canned frosting is still so disappointing and gross?

At my local SavMart the extracts were about $5 for two oz. Lemon, strawberry, banana, almond, maple, mint, etc. You just need a teaspoon.

No, flavoring are not really expensive, even the Star Kay White extracts r196.

It’s needless justification for white trash to have an excuse for highly processed sickening sweet cake frosting from a can, because they’re too lazy to make real frosting.

Almond extract is wonderful. But concentrated - a little goes a long way.

Still vomiting all over these fat-ass cakes and "boxed" frosting! RETCHHHHHHHHH

And I had 4 martinis.

DL really is Judgemental Fat Whore Central.

Excellent.

You definitely do not need a teaspoon full of flavoring extract. I put two or three drops of flavoring in a cake mix. Example. I find the lemon boxed cake mix too lemony. So I use the yellow cake and add a couple drops of lemon extract. I also grate lemon rind .It comes out perfect.

By the way, the Vanilla extract, the real stuff is ridiculously expensive right now. Seriously. So I was impressed when my dear good friend Ina Garten told me how to make my own. YOU get some Vanilla beans, put them in a mason Jar. Fill with any old cheap vodka, and then let it sit there for about 6 months. And Bingo! Vanilla.

Yeah, vanilla is like $8 a jar, even at Trader Joe's. I buy the cheap shit at Wal Mart.

Did you see that on YouTube r204? I was just recommended an Ina video tour of her barn kitchen and she brought out the homemade vanilla!

[quote]By the way, the Vanilla extract, the real stuff is ridiculously expensive right now. Seriously. So I was impressed when my dear good friend Ina Garten told me how to make my own. YOU get some Vanilla beans, put them in a mason Jar. Fill with any old cheap vodka, and then let it sit there for about 6 months. And Bingo! Vanilla.

Cook's Illustrated/ATK did a taste test and found that the imitation stuff was just as good as real vanilla in baked goods. This was their recommended brand. Less than a buck for 8 oz. (I'm sure Ina plotzed when she heard about this.)

That is NOT "good" vanilla!

I may have gotten a bad brand of it but the one time I used imitation vanilla, you could taste the difference. It almost tasted like molasses instead of vanilla.

R207, that's the cheap shit I get at Walmart!

R207, I used to work as a sensory analyst (taste tester, along with aroma, texture, and visuals). My company also did a vanilla study. I don't remember the exact numbers, but it was around 20 different brands of vanilla and vanillin (synthetic vanilla).

Yes, of course people could tell the difference among different brands -- some tasted woodier or sweeter or more "brown" or earthy or any of the other characteristics vanilla can have, but highly trained analysts could not tell the difference between natural vanilla and vanillin. Some of the vanillins tasted more natural than some other natural ones.

So R209, you may not have gotten a bad bottle, you may just not care for that particular brand.

Although our mission was never about which ones we liked best, only what flavors we detected and how strong they were, when we (informally, just for fun) named our favorites (by number, since we didn't know brand names) the overwhelming first choice was McCormick Imitation Vanilla. That's the one most people liked best. Several people preferred a strongly flavored Mexican vanilla, and a few others were chosen, as well.

But with thousands of data points describing the products in excrutiating detail, there were no statistically significant differences in flavor detectable between artificial and real vanillas. Again, there were flavor differences, but none that led analysts to determine whether a product was real or not. They were as likely to say an artificial one tasted real as they were to say a real one tasted artificial.

Real vanilla can "bake out" of baked goods, leaving no detectable vanilla flavor. You might as well just use the cheap stuff, even imitation (vanillin) for baked goods. Save the "good vanilla" for things that aren't heated, such as egg nog and other drinks.

R202 You stole my friend's nickname.

Another trick to make a box mix better is to make a simple syrup of 1 part water to 1 part sugar. Brush it onto the cake layers and they'll be much more moist.

r214 That what the host( Yolanda Gampp) does on "How To Cake It", before she adds icing or fondant to her cake layers. 'Sir Squeeze,' the sprinkler bottle that holds the simple syrup, is one her best kitchen buddies.

What about cake flour?

r216 It sends its love, it's doing fine.

Cake flour is a lower protein and more finely-milled flour that is great for cakes, less gluten is produced making for a more tender product.

I just remembered I went through a cupcake phase about 15 years ago, when I made cupcakes all the time and was always giving people cupcakes, people like the guys who worked where I bought gas, people at the tiny post office I use, etc. It was fun, but very gay.

Especially it's lovely to see people's faces light up when you give them a cupcake.

Thanks BronzeAgeGay @r217 send my regards.

Is it necessary to add baking powder to cake flour?

Not Bronzie, r219, but I've been making cakes from scratch for years, too.

I like to use cake flour, though not every recipe calls for it. Just follow your recipe. My favorite cake is Alice Waters' 1-2-3-4 yellow cake, and that calls for cake flour. It's a more delicate texture—has a more tender crumb, they say—than, for example, my favorite chocolate cake, Hershey's Perfectly Chocolate Cake, which uses All Purpose Flour, as does Ina's "Beatty's Chocolate Cake."

I buy either Swans Down or Softasilk cake flour, King Arthur's All Purpose flour, and regardless of which one you're using, yes, you usually do need to use baking powder to bake a cake. Just follow your recipe. And make sure your baking powder is fresh.

Both of these chocolate cakes call for baking soda as well.

Thanks r220. I want to learn how to bake better. The last time I made a cake from scratch was in 1992, my last ye in the Navy. It was a carrot cake; I recorded it from a local cooking show in San Diego. My shipmates loved it.

I'm embarrassed to admit this, but the one reason why I hate cupcakes is because of the little paper. Why hasn't anyone figured out how to make cupcakes without the little sleeve or whatever it's called.

If you grease the cupcake pan well enough you can pop the cupcakes out without them falling apart. The last time I did that, I used shortening. I don't mind the paper though so I just use cups and don't bother with greasing the pan.

Why did you buy Duncan Hines, OP?

Stick with Betty Cockrocker.

R218, that’s very sweet. It must have made a lot of people very happy.

Co-workers who stress bake are always great because they always end up giving away their baking and we, the office fatties, benefit.

r218 I feel the same way, I think it's because you have an "entire" cake to yourself. And if you're serving a crowd, there's nothing easier.

r219 Cake flour is simply that, flour, with no leaveners or salt added. Those are things present in self-rising flour.

r220 Does Miss Waters claim that cake as her own creation? Just asking, because that formula has been around for many decades.

r221 Anchors aweigh! Carrot cakes are one of my faves to bake AND eat. As an alternative you can substitute raw, grated orange-flesh sweet potatoes for the carrots. If you use nuts in your cake, pecans are recommended here.

r222 You can do as r223 said, or you can purchase silicon cupcake molds, then you don't even have to grease the cups.

Ciao, Bronzie. Alice Waters, in the beginning of the Making a Cake section of her 2007 cookbook, The Art of Simple Food, refers to her 1-2-3-4 cake recipe as "a version of a traditional recipe, the name of which refers to the quantities of butter, sugar, flour, and eggs." It was the first place I ever heard of the cake, and in the internet age, it is widely distributed via link to a NYT page that mentions Alice Waters' rendition specifically.

It has worked every time I've used it, by now in 50+ cakes, whether I separate the eggs or not.

You little boogers forced me to make my Fall specialty, a spice cake from Duncan Hines with grated zucchini and a mashed banana added along with some chopped pecans.....it is delicious. Now I will slice it into twelve servings, and freeze them. That way I can have a piece now and then without feeling guilty for being a pig.

r228 That sounds lovely. Maybe try a slice toasted with butter or jam?

Jamie Oliver once made a great looking cake made with almond flour and pistachios and honey. I cannot find the recipe anywhere. I think that he even made it outside on some sort of grill.

You mean this cake r230?

Better Than Sex Cake

Yes, R231!!! Thanks. I didn't get the ingredients right in my post, but this is the one. Looks great, doesn't it?

"Better Than Sex Cake" looks more like "Everything but the Kitchen Sink Cake."

Not to derail this thread, but...

r235 Well, at least now I know what to get Chrissy Metz for Christmas.

But isn’t Cinnabon loaded with chemical additives?

[quote]But isn’t Cinnabon loaded with chemical additives?

I'm not sure Chrissy would really care

I don’t mind the cake mixes. But the canned frosting tastes terrible.

Homemade frosting or glaze is always better than canned.

I love canned frosting. Growing up my mom always made homemade so it was always a treat having processed food

For those of you who did not know...

[quote]The Pound Cake: This cake gets its name because of how its ingredients can be measured: a pound of butter, a pound of sugar, a pound of eggs, and a pound of flour. The cake itself is extremely dense, since it doesn't rise as much as the American-style butter cake. Because of its richness, pound cakes typically have light flavors and are served plain or topped with a basic glaze. They're normally baked in a loaf or Bundt pant. Pound cake variations include some coffee cakes, sour cream cakes, and fruit crumb cakes.

Is it appropriate to wear a red lip with a Bundt pant? What about a skinny jean?

R242, that sounds almost as simple as my Cupa, Cupa, Cupa recipe.

Addendum to your post r242: In that instance, the eggs are weighed while still in their shells(Approx. 8 eggs)

Q: is there a difference between "frosting" and "icing?"

Is it a regional thing? My Texas-raised friend grew up with "icing." Never "frosting."

[quote] YOU get some Vanilla beans, put them in a mason Jar. Fill with any old cheap vodka, and then let it sit there for about 6 months. And Bingo! Vanilla.

R204, do not use Popov vodka. In my alcoholic days, I experimented with lots of cheap to medium-priced hard liquors. Popov tastes horrible. If you're going to buy vanilla beans and make your own extract, use something like Absolut or Stolichnaya.

R246, icing is a warm-ishliquid poured over a dessert item. Could be a doughnut or a cake, etc. Picture the simple sugar (?) glaze on a raised doughnut. In that case it’s called a glaze, but picture the same type of doughnut with a white or pink or “chocolate” icing on it—that’s an icing, not a frosting. Or picture a cake a fondant ICING on it.

A *frosting* is completely different. It’s thick. Think of a thick buttercream frosting on a cake or piled high atop a cupcake.

You have to differentiate between the two. It’s not correct to refer to frosting as icing.

Yikes, sorry about typos and missing words in the above post. Hopefully it’s parseable.

That was, Picture a cake *with* a fondant ICING on it.

I like the premade frostings in a tub, e.g., chocolate. I grew up with homemade cakes and frostings, but still like the Duncan Hines mixes & tub frostings, etc.

THANK YOU, r248! I've always used the two words interchangeably when referencing what was put on cake, but I never realized the nuances between the two. Your explanation makes perfect sense. Tomorrow I'm going to confound my friends with this great new knowledge.

That post is just icing on the cake!

My aunt used to be famous in our family for her incredibly light and fluffy cakes. German chocolate was always my favorite. Her special technique was to separate the eggs and egg whites, beat the egg whites until some stage I don't remember for sure (stiff peak? soft peak?), and then gently fold them into the batter.

My aunt used to be famous in our family for her incredibly light and fluffy cakes. German chocolate was always my favorite. Her special technique was to separate the eggs and egg whites, beat the egg whites until some stage I don't remember for sure (stiff peak? soft peak?), and then gently fold them into the batter.

So who is baking for Thanksgiving? Pies, cakes, breads?

Pecan pie bars and Pumpkin Streusel muffins.

Squash pie. Very similar to pumpkin, only with squash.

Fun fact - most commercial pumpkin pie filling is made from squash - butternut, kabocha, hubbard, dickinson. They are all closely related to field pumpkins, but often have a different colored skin.

R258, I grow non-edible gourds to make art with, which are in the same family, and it used to be a little jarring for me to hear "pumpkin people" refer to pumpkins as gourds.

When you bake a cake, do you grease and flour the pan? Or just grease it only?

What about using parchment paper?

I always grease and flour the pan, R260, so that the cake will pop right out when it's done.

r260 Put a few dabs of solid fat in the bottom of the pan, pop in the paper(that has been cut to size, you can also buy some pre-cut sizes) and smooth it down, this will secure the waxed or parchment paper in place. Generously grease the paper and sides of the pan, especially where the base meets the wall of the pan, then add a scoop of flour. Rotate the pan to coat the grease with the flour. Invert and tap out the excess. Done.

I've never used those aerosol sprays that are a combo of fat and flour, designed for just this purpose. Anyone care to chime in on how good they are?

I can recommend those fabric cake strips that help cakes rise evenly. You saturate them with water, then pin them to the OUTSIDE of the pan(this is done more easily before you fill it) The moisture slows down the crusting at the edges of the cake, allowing it to rise at the same rate as the center. For larger pans you can pin 2 or more together.

PAM Baking Spray is also good.

I always recommend PAM!

I have two of those unusual Bundt pans with lots of little nooks and crevices for cake to stick to. I find the only way to get decent results is to use a pastry brush and softened butter to make sure every square millimeter is covered. (The photo is of one of the pans I own.)

I also have this one.

What is a good, simple cream cheese frosting recipe? I am baking pumpkin carrot ginger muffins in the morning. I have cream cheese, powdered sugar, butter, vanilla, etc.

R264: Pam -- I don't know her, but I like her.