Why does everyone use ready made cake mix???

[SanDguy_22]

the stuff is kind of nasty if you hapen to read the side bar...
the cake is "OK" in quality and you could make better stuff from scratch.

But then again what do i know... im the freaky chef who deas everythign from scratch... in the same amount of time it takes to make the ready made stuff.

Cake is horridly easy to make from scratch... so easy its not even funny. (just make sure your ingredients are fresh)

Ergo why bother with crappy ready mix???

 

[Vixandra]

Time and resource management.
Besides, I like some of the box mixes. Yeah, but we already knew I'm a bit weird, nothing new there.

 

[SanDguy_22]

Time and resource management.
Besides, I like some of the box mixes. Yeah, but we already knew I'm a bit weird, nothing new there.

it takes about as long and costs about as much to make somehting from scratch than to use the pre made mix...
+ you can make a whole bunch of other stuff from the leftover ingredients.

So i see no reason to use ready mix...

 

[Holly Delight]

All the really good cakes I have made are from scratch.

I confess to using mixes sometimes, but rarely.

You need to watch for trans-fats in the ready made mixes. Bad. Bad. Bad.

 

[Bandit58]

When I was on the farm I always made cakes from scratch, with farm eggs (beautiful yellow/orange yolks) and fresh milk (unpasteurised/unhomogenised.... )
But since I left 2 years ago I haven't baked anything firstly because I've lived alone and secondly because I'm not a big eater of sweet things. I've probably forgotten how to by now.......

One thing though.....no matter how many times I tried I could never make a sponge cake as good as my mother in law's......and I did all the same things she did.....(but it still tasted good )

 

[LLs Man]

Doing it yourself is definitely the best way (I'm talking about cakes here, other things are better with two ). I was lucky in that my dad was trained as a cook in the air force, so I pretty much grew up knowing how to cook (unlike a lot of men).

I've never used a cake mix, & can't see myself ever doing so, I even made the cake for our handfasting

 

[asenath]

What about the people who buy the bread machine mixes? It's already super easy to use a bread machine.. why use a boxed mix on top of that?

 

[_Milky_Whites_]

I'll admit, I make the cakes from a box. Like someone said, time management. I'm not much of a chef, making anything from scratch takes me forever. So if the hubby and the kids like that boxed shit, who am I to complain?
If it helps, I do sometimes make the icing from scratch...lol.

 

[SlickTony]

I make cakes from scratch--in fact, I make almost everything from scratch except for cornbread and pancakes. There, I found that Jiffy and Bisquick do about as good a job as I do, and it really is less hassle.

 

[Noor]

Cake mix virgin here. I always make cakes from scratch. The hard part is doing the dishes afterwards.

How does one decide on the spur of the moment what kind of cake you want if you must rely on a mix?

I like cooking and baking with whole foods, not a bunch of chemicals.

I imagine it is what you grew up with, what you are used to.

 

[SanDguy_22]

What about the people who buy the bread machine mixes? It's already super easy to use a bread machine.. why use a boxed mix on top of that?

its the same thing... why bother with the mix...
the average loaf of bread has about 5 ingredients to it... and a little bit of elbow grease. after that... it basicaly makes it self.

 

[blondie74]

Cakes from scratch are definitely better, just that sometimes, I don't have the time or the ingredients, so I have to go with the box kind!

 

[SanDguy_22]

I'll admit, I make the cakes from a box. Like someone said, time management. I'm not much of a chef, making anything from scratch takes me forever. So if the hubby and the kids like that boxed shit, who am I to complain?
If it helps, I do sometimes make the icing from scratch...lol.

try to make one sfrom scratch... a simple sponge cake takes about
15-25 minutes to make... total. after which you let it cool and you frost the damned thing.

sponge recipe.
1 cup eggs
1 cup sugar
1 cup flower
1 tsp vanilla extract (or which ever flavor you want)
pinch of salt
1/2-3/4 tsp baking powder

blend sugar and eggs till peaks form... add the other ingredients and fold... untill evenly dispersed.
Pour in to a breaded cooking tin and bake at 350 F for about 15 minutes.. or untill the cake no longer wiggles and it no longer sticks to a tootpick you put in trough the middle.

"frosting"
4 oz mascarpone
8 oz cream
1 tbs sugar (2 tbs if using confectionary)
a pinch of salt
1 tsp vanilla extract

voila... just spread it on the cake...
takes about 30 minutes time with frosting etc aplied on.
only 20 of you just serve the sponge and let people slop the frosting on by them selves.

 

[ReadyOne]

For some reason, I can't get as fine a texture with scratch cakes as I can with a mix; even when I use cake flour...

 

[SanDguy_22]

For some reason, I can't get as fine a texture with scratch cakes as I can with a mix; even when I use cake flour...

then you must have some pretty crappy flower... or your not using enough fat... etc etc... or most likely your mixing it for too long. (that creates glutein which in turn makes the cake slightly tougher...)

I just go for king arthurs AP flower... they also have cake flower... never tried it though. (if you use that nonorganic, chromated, bleached etc overly treated flower... you will always get a crappy ass cake or crappy anyhting you might make with it.)

 

[_Milky_Whites_]

try to make one sfrom scratch... a simple sponge cake takes about
15-25 minutes to make... total. after which you let it cool and you frost the damned thing.

sponge recipe.
1 cup eggs
1 cup sugar
1 cup flower
1 tsp vanilla extract (or which ever flavor you want)
pinch of salt
1/2-3/4 tsp baking powder

blend sugar and eggs till peaks form... add the other ingredients and fold... untill evenly dispersed.
Pour in to a breaded cooking tin and bake at 350 F for about 15 minutes.. or untill the cake no longer wiggles and it no longer sticks to a tootpick you put in trough the middle.

"frosting"
4 oz mascarpone
8 oz cream
1 tbs sugar (2 tbs if using confectionary)
a pinch of salt
1 tsp vanilla extract

voila... just spread it on the cake...
takes about 30 minutes time with frosting etc aplied on.
only 20 of you just serve the sponge and let people slop the frosting on by them selves.

OK...that sounds simple enough. I'll give it a try sometimes and see.
I'm a decent cook but I guess my true skill lies elsewhere. I'm creative though. If I make a cake I can decorate it nicely.

 

[SlickTony]

Bread machine bread has improved since bread machines first appeared on the scene. I was not impressed with the texture of the first bread machine loaves I had. They're much better than they used to be.

It had to be admitted that bread made by hand takes work. You have to mix the stuff together and knead it (you also need counter space). You still have to wait on the stuff, on account of the yeast, but at least you can dump the ingredients in the machine and walk away.

 

[SanDguy_22]

Bread machine bread has improved since bread machines first appeared on the scene. I was not impressed with the texture of the first bread machine loaves I had. They're much better than they used to be.

It had to be admitted that bread made by hand takes work. You have to mix the stuff together and knead it (you also need counter space). You still have to wait on the stuff, on account of the yeast, but at least you can dump the ingredients in the machine and walk away.

actualy it only takes one bowl to make a dough and after that you walk away till its risen...
it takes about 10 minutes to mix and knead the bread dough.
then you can walk away till its risen... punch it down form a loaf let it rise again and bake away...

you can make the dough rise a little bit faster if you preheat your oven to the lowest setting it reacts to turn it off... put the dough in there... 30 minutes later the dough has prooffed it self.

i have nothing against machines persay.. just the ready mixes.

 

[Pimptress J]

Since my most favorite cake to make is Red Velvet cake, and the only way to get that true red color is to make it from scratch, that is what I do.

Love to bake everything from scratch. They turn out so much lighter and I have found that they taste soo much better!

 

[SanDguy_22]

Since my most favorite cake to make is Red Velvet cake, and the only way to get that true red color is to make it from scratch, that is what I do.

Love to bake everything from scratch. They turn out so much lighter and I have found that they taste soo much better!

thank you.... your my honey now...

 

[dollface007]

Since my most favorite cake to make is Red Velvet cake, and the only way to get that true red color is to make it from scratch, that is what I do.

Love to bake everything from scratch. They turn out so much lighter and I have found that they taste soo much better!

Red Velvet cake is my absolute favorite! Homemade is definitely the best. I remember my mom making it as a kid and being totally amazed by the color.

What do you guys think of Red Velvet as a wedding cake? Has anyone seen it done before?

 

[Pimptress J]

Well thank you!

The one thing I had issues with though, was moving from Steamboat Springs back down to Colorado Springs, there is about 3000ft difference between the 2, and I had just mastered the art of not getting the hump in the middle, or the dip in the middle of the cake when I moved back here! Then I had to relearn all over again. Since the air is thinner, and drier than where you are, you have to watch the cakes very very closely, 2 minutes can mean the difference between saltine like texture and perfect!
Unless I am pressed for time, everything I make is from fresh.
Especially my homemade pasta sauce, which only takes about 12 hours to make. But it is well worth it.

 

[Pimptress J]

Red Velvet cake is my absolute favorite! Homemade is definitely the best. I remember my mom making it as a kid and being totally amazed by the color.

What do you guys think of Red Velvet as a wedding cake? Has anyone seen it done before?

When I lived in Georgia (where I learned from an 80 year old woman how to make it) my best friends had their wedding cake a red velvet cake. It is ub3r yummy, so I would have to say go for it.

What turned me on to the cake was the movie Steel Magnolia's where the grooms cake was a red velvet cake, I then asked what a red velvet cake was (being in the south I was given very odd looks), wouldn't you know, Nana-mama (great gramma of friends) took me in her kitchen right then and showed me how to make one. It was well worth missing seeing Julia Roberts die.

 

[SanDguy_22]

Well thank you!

The one thing I had issues with though, was moving from Steamboat Springs back down to Colorado Springs, there is about 3000ft difference between the 2, and I had just mastered the art of not getting the hump in the middle, or the dip in the middle of the cake when I moved back here! Then I had to relearn all over again. Since the air is thinner, and drier than where you are, you have to watch the cakes very very closely, 2 minutes can mean the difference between saltine like texture and perfect!
Unless I am pressed for time, everything I make is from fresh.
Especially my homemade pasta sauce, which only takes about 12 hours to make. But it is well worth it.

do yo poach and peel fresh tomatoes??? i usualy do that for my
pasta primavera...

 

[xeros_girl]

I have two main reasons:

I don't have the money to buy flour and vanilla and chocolate and all of the other ingredients required... a box mix costs a buck fifty whereas flour and good quality vanilla alone cost well over 8 bucks, easy... I just don't have the money for all the ingredients. I can make an entire cake, icing including, from a box for $5. Money is a big issue when you have as little as I do, those couple of bucks make all the difference. I know the train of thought is going "if you're so poor then why are you having cake?" Well, a girl can spend her birthday alone just fine, but a birthday alone without cake on top of that is just not going to happen, so I broke the budget and had/made myself a birthday cake.

The flavor is not what I would like it to be. At least with abox I know what it's gonna taste like, I mean you can only fuck up a box cake mix so much... they're made for the masses and the masses can fuck up pretty good. The people at Duncan Hines or Betty Crocker try their best to stay one step ahead of the masses in fuckups. But start having people measure all they're own ingredients and follow recipes that don't have pictures!! Oh NO!! Exploding cake across the ceiling!

I should be ashamed, going to cooking school and still using cake mixes, but I have an excuse I haven't been through bake shop yet!

But I feel the way y'all do about cake mixes about pudding mixes. Pudding requires a little effort but the stuff in the box tastes like poo compared to a hot bowl of pudding fresh from the stove. milk + powder= something that can't possibly be pudding