Boxed Cakes w/ a Little Extra!

[maslex]

After reading this thread for the past couple of days, I had to break down and bake the cake that I posted on page 2.

It's a chocolate cake with sour cream, chocolate chips, etc. MMM MMM Good!!!

 

[DMRick]

I had forgotten how rich and good this is. I have some buttercream made as well as some whipped (from Sam's club in the big buckets) frozen, so I will frost it and share with company later. The hunk I took out to taste it can easiy be filled in LOL!
This is really every bit as easy as making a box cake, but tastes so very much better! I only had light mayo and that worked fine.

My mom's choc mayo cake which I'm now going to make this afternoon!

3 cups unsifted all purpose flour
2/3 cup unsweetened chocolate
1-1/2 cups sugar
2-1/4 teas baking powder
1-1/2 teas baking soda
1-1/2 cups Hellmans mayo
1-1/2 cups water
1-1/2 teas vanilla

Sift dry ingredients into large bowl. Stir in mayo. Gradually stir in water and vanilla until smooth and blended/ Pour nto prepared pans. 350 degrees about 30 minutes (until inserted knife comes out clean..do not overbake), makes 2 layers.

 

[Poohforyou]

Here's an easy and good cake recipe that I've made a few times for kids with dairy allergies:

Chocolate Wacky Depression Cake

INGREDIENTS:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup white sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt (optional)

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 cup cocoa powder

6 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 tablespoon white vinegar

1 cup water

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium mixing bowl, mix all the dry ingredients together by hand. Add all the wet ingredients until well combined. Pour into a 8×8 pan which has been prepared with non stick spray.

Bake for 30 until done. Allow to completely cool before serving. Cake is even better if eaten the next day. Enjoy!

 

[luvthatduke]

I've substituted all the oil for applesauce in brownies for years. No one has ever been the wiser.

I'll try that next time - thanks!

 

[Shanna-like-Banana]

ya'll what makes it the absolute moist ever is to use some powdered pudding mix.

I have a few boxed in the cupbaord, I just sprinkle into the batter about 1/3 of the small instant pudding mix and it makes it sssssoooooooooo moist.

Just fold the envelope up and put it back in the box and use the rest for another cake later.

ssooooo yummy and moist w/o having to add even more calories from extra eggs or having to use milk if you don't want to

 

[tlbwriter]

Went to a get together at my friends about a month or so ago. I knew she had cake and I was all excited (I LOOOOOVE frosting) and I just couldn't wait to have a piece. So anyhow, after we had a cookout, she brings the cake out and immediately I got all sad. It was one of those bundt type cakes that you just dust with powdered sugar. I think I cried a little. LOL I was in the mood for a nice slice of chocolate cake with FROSTING!!!! But let me tell you.....it was sooooooo moist & sooooooo delicious that it didn't need a speck of frosting on it.

I believe it came from the Cake Doctor because when she told me the recipe I kind of remembered reading it in there. Hold on.....let me see if I can find it. Yep, here we go. Now, I'm not saying this is the most healthy of options but boooooyyyyyy, is it good.


Ingredients
1 (18.25 ounce) package devil's food cake mix
1 (3.9 ounce) package instant chocolate pudding mix
1 cup sour cream
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup water
4 eggs
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
6 tablespoons butter
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips




Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 10 inch Bundt pan.
2. In a large bowl, combine cake mix, pudding mix, sour cream, milk, oil, water and eggs. Beat for 4 minutes, then mix in 2 cups chocolate chips.
3. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake in the preheated oven for 40 to 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes in the pan, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely.
4. To make the glaze: Melt the butter and 1 cup chocolate chips in a double boiler or microwave oven. Stir until smooth and drizzle over cake.

I just starting using a recipe very similar to this recently - found it on the Tasty Kitchen website. It really is yummy. And you can use any type of cake mix or frosting - I made a yellow cake with french vanilla pudding mix and it was fantastic!

The ones I've tasted taste just... awful. Like the frosting in a tin, tastes like chemical stew.

I get the amateur thing, though cakes are easy to make, but past that, especially if someone is confident enough to be messing with the box mix... I don't get it.

Well, maybe you're a "supertaster," but I've never had a boxed cake that was bad just because it was boxed.

Here's an interesting story, I don't remember where I read it. When boxed cake mixes first came out, you didn't have to add eggs. The mix included dried eggs. Consumer researched showed that women (yes, at the time, it was pretty much all women) disliked the mixes because they were too good. Everybody bought one thinking "it won't be as good as MY cake, but it will be okay to whip together when I'm too busy to make a REAL cake," and then their families loved them so much that they came to resent the mixes. They didn't like the fact that it was SO easy to make something that tasted as good as their own cakes. So the manufacturers took out the eggs, and having to do just a little bit more work made the customers more satisfied with the end product.

red velvet (which is just chocolate cake with food colouring and I cannot understand the popularity, heh),

Red velvet cake isn't the same as chocolate cake. It's very lightly chocolate flavored, and it also contains vinegar. If you can't tell the difference in a blind taste test, it's because someone doesn't know how to make red velvet cake.

I don't get the doctored boxed cake mixes, either. I would think that doing all the doctoring would make it take just as much time and effort as making from scratch. I've never used a boxed mix, though, so maybe I'm way off.

No, it really doesn't. I do both and there's a huge difference. When you doctor a cake mix you are usually adding flavorings. You still get to skip measuring the flour, salt, leavening, etc.

 

[Molliday]

My husband's favorite cake, is a white cake, with a box of lemon instant pudding added, along with a cup of Sprite. There is oil in there too, but I don't have the recipe in front of me.

I make the icing with powdered sugar and orange juice.

He and my youngest daughter love it! I always keep the ingredients on hand, because it's so easy to make. Bake it in a bundt pan, and it comes out looking nice. Bake it in a 13 x 9 x 2, and the middle tends to sink... which makes my husband eat the cake from the middle out, because the icing tends to sink there, which does not make me happy.

 

[OceanAnnie]

My husband's favorite cake, is a white cake, with a box of lemon instant pudding added, along with a cup of Sprite. There is oil in there too, but I don't have the recipe in front of me.

I make the icing with powdered sugar and orange juice.

He and my youngest daughter love it! I always keep the ingredients on hand, because it's so easy to make. Bake it in a bundt pan, and it comes out looking nice. Bake it in a 13 x 9 x 2, and the middle tends to sink... which makes my husband eat the cake from the middle out, because the icing tends to sink there, which does not make me happy.

I'd love the recipe to that cake! It sounds so good!

 

[NEVERENOUGHWDW]

The ones I've tasted taste just... awful. Like the frosting in a tin, tastes like chemical stew.

I get the amateur thing, though cakes are easy to make, but past that, especially if someone is confident enough to be messing with the box mix... I don't get it.

Amateur no. My holiday cakes/advance notice cakes are always from scratch.
Some of us have very busy lives and when my friend had a loss in the family a box is what I had on hand and wanted to treat the kids in the family to something sweet so they felt loved & thought of.....

I found a little tip to make those of us "amateurs" lives a bit quicker.

Those of us that do bake from scratch know ingredients don't fare well from holiday season to holiday season just sitting in your cabinet.

As far as red velvet cake it is an American staple from the South that has taken off into the rest of the county.
Based on your use of the word "tin" I will assume your not from the U.S. We all have traditional foods...
Finally Red Velvet cake is not just cake with coloring. It has a distinct cocoa flavor.

 

[cornflake]

Well, maybe you're a "supertaster," but I've never had a boxed cake that was bad just because it was boxed.

Here's an interesting story, I don't remember where I read it. When boxed cake mixes first came out, you didn't have to add eggs. The mix included dried eggs. Consumer researched showed that women (yes, at the time, it was pretty much all women) disliked the mixes because they were too good. Everybody bought one thinking "it won't be as good as MY cake, but it will be okay to whip together when I'm too busy to make a REAL cake," and then their families loved them so much that they came to resent the mixes. They didn't like the fact that it was SO easy to make something that tasted as good as their own cakes. So the manufacturers took out the eggs, and having to do just a little bit more work made the customers more satisfied with the end product.


Red velvet cake isn't the same as chocolate cake. It's very lightly chocolate flavored, and it also contains vinegar. If you can't tell the difference in a blind taste test, it's because someone doesn't know how to make red velvet cake.

No, it really doesn't. I do both and there's a huge difference. When you doctor a cake mix you are usually adding flavorings. You still get to skip measuring the flour, salt, leavening, etc.

From what I know of it, I'd wager I'm not a supertaster, but I've never tried the little test or had a real test for it. I do have the cilantro thing, but, also from what I know, there's no consensus as to what that falls under, sensitivity to the chemicals/taste or allergy or what have you.

It's not that it tastes "bad" but that it tastes so chemically, like the tinned frosting. Just tastes like a super sweet chemical stew, it's noxious.

I didn't know that about the box mixes, that's interesting.

I've not tried red velvet, actually, as I know what it is and 'lookit, but it's bright red from food colouring' is not an enticement to me, personally, heh. I do know the red used to be the tint from the action of the leavener and the cocoa, but the vinegar as leavener has never left a taste at all, to me, and I use it, as I like a couple of vegan cake recipes (because they're excellent cakes, not because they're vegan - one is actually up in the thread as a depression cake).

Sure you have to measure flour, etc,, if you're making a scratch cake vs. boxed, I think the point the other poster and I were making is that that takes like 2 seconds, and by the time you're adding other stuff and etc., (also, from the thread, from boxes, like pudding [that also, when boxed, taste terribly chemical to me just btw], the time would seem to be the same.

 

[jacque m]

I have the Cake Doctor Cookbook (can't find it right now, so someone might have "borrowed" it. LOL) A lot of great recipes in there though.

I've also never heard of the milk/extra egg thing. But my grandmother's cakes/cupcakes were always SOOOO moist and delish. Her secret????

Instead of using water, she used 7-UP instead!!! Always made it so light and moist. MMMMM

Went to a get together at my friends about a month or so ago. I knew she had cake and I was all excited (I LOOOOOVE frosting) and I just couldn't wait to have a piece. So anyhow, after we had a cookout, she brings the cake out and immediately I got all sad. It was one of those bundt type cakes that you just dust with powdered sugar. I think I cried a little. LOL I was in the mood for a nice slice of chocolate cake with FROSTING!!!! But let me tell you.....it was sooooooo moist & sooooooo delicious that it didn't need a speck of frosting on it.

I believe it came from the Cake Doctor because when she told me the recipe I kind of remembered reading it in there. Hold on.....let me see if I can find it. Yep, here we go. Now, I'm not saying this is the most healthy of options but boooooyyyyyy, is it good.


Ingredients
1 (18.25 ounce) package devil's food cake mix
1 (3.9 ounce) package instant chocolate pudding mix
1 cup sour cream
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup water
4 eggs
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
6 tablespoons butter
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips




Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 10 inch Bundt pan.
2. In a large bowl, combine cake mix, pudding mix, sour cream, milk, oil, water and eggs. Beat for 4 minutes, then mix in 2 cups chocolate chips.
3. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake in the preheated oven for 40 to 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes in the pan, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely.
4. To make the glaze: Melt the butter and 1 cup chocolate chips in a double boiler or microwave oven. Stir until smooth and drizzle over cake.

This sounds sooo good! Thanks for including what you put on top. Chocolate glaze sounds so yummy.

 

[knitster]

From what I know of it, I'd wager I'm not a supertaster, but I've never tried the little test or had a real test for it. I do have the cilantro thing, but, also from what I know, there's no consensus as to what that falls under, sensitivity to the chemicals/taste or allergy or what have you.

If by "cilantro thing" you mean "cilantro tastes like dish soap and can't be within 10 feet of my food", then you and I are of the same ilk.

I, too, think that canned frosting has a metallic chemically taste to it.

I don't have anything against making boxed cakes - I've just never made them because my mom never made them and since she taught me how to bake, I just always baked the way she did.

I do super love the light cocoa flavor of red velvet cake that I make, but I don't add the food coloring.

 

[cornflake]

If by "cilantro thing" you mean "cilantro tastes like dish soap and can't be within 10 feet of my food", then you and I are of the same ilk.

I, too, think that canned frosting has a metallic chemically taste to it.

I don't have anything against making boxed cakes - I've just never made them because my mom never made them and since she taught me how to bake, I just always baked the way she did.

I do super love the light cocoa flavor of red velvet cake that I make, but I don't add the food coloring.

That would be it, yeah. And yes, I can tell if there's a bit of cilantro been ground into the salsa, as it tastes like someone squirted Dawn into the stuff.

Interesting about the frosting.

I know the cilantro thing is me - well, me and the 10% or whatever (I've seen different figures and I know there are different levels because I've seen some people saying it's just a bit soapy yet herby tasting - and arguing with me about how I just don't like the particular herby taste [which, no.] but for me it's like overhwelming straight soap and a sprinkling will render a dish close to inedible) who have it.

However, I assumed tinned frosting and such tasted like that to everyone. Now you're making me wonder!

 

[Molliday]

I'd love the recipe to that cake! It sounds so good!

Here you go!

Lemon Glazed Cake

Cake

1 package white cake mix
1 3.4 oz package of instant lemon pudding mix
3/4 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
1 cup lemon-lime soda (Sprite, 7-Up, Sierra Mist - do not use diet soda)

Glaze

1 cup confectioners sugar
2 T lemon or orange juice

Combine cake mix, pudding mix, oil and eggs and beat on medium speed for one minute. Gradually beat in the soda. Pour into a greased 13x9x2 baking dish. Back at 350 degrees, for 40 - 45 minutes or until cake springs back when lightly touched in the center.

(I usually make more glaze. The more icing the better, is my motto!)

 

[tlbwriter]

Sure you have to measure flour, etc,, if you're making a scratch cake vs. boxed, I think the point the other poster and I were making is that that takes like 2 seconds, and by the time you're adding other stuff and etc., (also, from the thread, from boxes, like pudding [that also, when boxed, taste terribly chemical to me just btw], the time would seem to be the same.

Well, you need to do a test and let us know what happens! Bake your favorite moist chocolate cake, and then bake the cake with the pudding and sour cream added to the cake mix (posted upthread). There may be something in your own personal chemistry that makes the box cake taste odd to you, but you can still see for yourself if it's really just as easy (and messy) to bake from scratch. And then have someone taste the box cake and ask them if it tastes metallic or chemical.

 

[rszdtrvl]

Thank you! We are having a bake sale at the beginning of November, and I am anxious to make a bunch of cakes and cupcakes!

Here you go!

Lemon Glazed Cake

Cake

1 package white cake mix
1 3.4 oz package of instant lemon pudding mix
3/4 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
1 cup lemon-lime soda (Sprite, 7-Up, Sierra Mist - do not use diet soda)

Glaze

1 cup confectioners sugar
2 T lemon or orange juice

Combine cake mix, pudding mix, oil and eggs and beat on medium speed for one minute. Gradually beat in the soda. Pour into a greased 13x9x2 baking dish. Back at 350 degrees, for 40 - 45 minutes or until cake springs back when lightly touched in the center.

(I usually make more glaze. The more icing the better, is my motto!)

 

[ChristmasElf]

Mayonaisse is nothing but eggs and oil ( and a pinch of salt and lemon juice)

You can even make mayo from scratch-if you love to whisk and have the arm for it!

Years ago when I was in Culinary school they were always teaching us that accuracy in measurements were always crucial n the bakery as even slight variations in proportions or procedures can mean great differences in the final product.
We always weigh each ingredient versus "measure" for even more accuracy. This is called scaling.
A good digital scale is a must have (Target $19-$49 USUALLY)

Also, don't use a liquid measuring cup for dry ingredients or vise versa, don't use a dry ingredient measuring cup for liquids as they do measure differently.

 

[Jennasis]

Mayonaisse is nothing but eggs and oil ( and a pinch of salt and lemon juice)

You can even make mayo from scratch-if you love to whisk and have the arm for it!

Years ago when I was in Culinary school they were always teaching us that accuracy in measurements were always crucial n the bakery as even slight variations in proportions or procedures can mean great differences in the final product.
We always weigh each ingredient versus "measure" for even more accuracy. This is called scaling.
A good digital scale is a must have (Target $19-$49 USUALLY)

Also, don't use a liquid measuring cup for dry ingredients or vise versa, don't use a dry ingredient measuring cup for liquids as they do measure differently.

Are we talking Hellman's mayo? Cause that has vinegar in it. I would imagine that might change the cake a bit.

 

[ChristmasElf]

Are we talking Hellman's mayo? Cause that has vinegar in it. I would imagine that might change the cake a bit.

Vinegar-Lemon Juice. Either one have acid in them that keeps the emulsion more stable.

 

[Imzadi]

I found a little tip to make those of us "amateurs" lives a bit quicker.

Those of us that do bake from scratch know ingredients don't fare well from holiday season to holiday season just sitting in your cabinet.

Finally Red Velvet cake is not just cake with coloring. It has a distinct cocoa flavor.

Yes, there is a scratch recipe upthread, which has the ingredients cocoa powder, baking powder & baking soda and assumes we'd have these around to bake a cake whenever.

Every time I have to use baking powder in something, I end up having to buy a new box as the old one is so old, I'm sure it doesn't have the rising action any more.

My last box of powdered cocoa must have lasted a year & a half. I had to keep wiping off the dust on the top of the lid before using it. I finally used it up on hot chocolate, not baking.

Baking soda, I usually only use for cleaning.


And no, I wouldn't use the same basic, multipurpose cake recipe and just toss in cocoa powder for a chocolate cake or a red velvet cake. If I'm going to take the time & effort to make one from scratch, I'd also make sure to get the BEST chocolate cake recipe on the planet. What's the point of making it from scratch just to end up with a so-so cake, that tasted like a yellow cake with a 1/4 cup of cocoa added?

Years ago when I was in Culinary school they were always teaching us that accuracy in measurements were always crucial n the bakery as even slight variations in proportions or procedures can mean great differences in the final product.

Yes, even I was taught this, amateur baker that I am, and mentioned it earlier.

Also, this is the number 1 reason why the chefs on Top Chef, may be brilliant chefs, who are used to improvising and tossing in a pinch here and a splash there, but are horrible bakers for the dessert challenges. Cooking, being able to toss in a handfull here and there and making substitutions at will is a totally different mentality and personality from baking, which requires precision levels of ingredients to bake and re-molecularize and puff up correctly. Unless the chef has an assortment of baking recipes memorized, which improvisational cooking does not require, (and is their forte,) that's the reason they fail during the dessert/baking challenges.

Also, don't use a liquid measuring cup for dry ingredients or vise versa, don't use a dry ingredient measuring cup for liquids as they do measure differently.

There is a difference in the measuring cups??? What about measuring spoons?

Well, no wonder why my quinoa muffins didn't work out. I thought they were missing way to much brown sugar and vanilla, made according to the recipe.