I made a white cake out of Collete Peters' books and it turned out awful. Not firm enough to decorate or hold any weight. I was running out of time so I ended up using box cake and "embellished" with a recipe from this website. I felt like I was "cheating". Am I, or do a lot of people use box and add to it?

all the time...oh... all the time.

it's not cheating ....

it's adapting!

The outcome you want is a delicious cake. Does it really matter how you get it?
I think that people are used to the texture of box cakes. They're lighter, moister and hold up better than most scratch cakes. I find that for white, yellow and chocolate cakes (I always make pound and carrot cakes from scratch) people greatly prefer the extended cake mix recipes.

Just my opinion.......

I do both. Nobody can ever really tell the difference. At least, nobody I know.

Cheating who?

Your end product was a cake you wanted right?

Were you swindling someone?

Were you trying to defraud someone?

Are the cake police after you?

If not, than don't worry about it.

If it tastes good, who cares?

I suppose you might have a customer who doesn't want the additives in cake mixes, but unless they specify that, I wouldn't worry about it.

I make about 75% doctored cake mixes, 25% scratch. Carrot cake is always from scratch, and I sometimes make chocolate from scratch.

Your secret is safe with us!

Thanks! I thought that it did taste good. I've always done from scratch but this was equally good and A LOT less time! I think that in the future I will save myself the hassle.

im surprised colette's recipe didn't hold up to decorating. i've never tried one of them, but i would expect more from one of her cakes.

You only cheated if you told the customer that they were getting a scratch cake.

I guess I always "cheat". I am a die hard box mix decorator. I do doctor them and my icing is ALWAYS made from scratch! I'm one of those that think that if you baked it yourself, it's homemade.

Sorry, Ma'am I am the cake police and I think I am going to have to write you up a warning on this one. Be a little more careful in the future

I get RAVE reviews on my cakes that I make with Duncan Hines mix with the extender recipe added. I use it for white, devils food, and yellow. I add 1/4 cup of cocoa to the devils food and it tastes almost like brownies...yummy!

My customers BEG me to bake! I'm beginning to feel like the cake nazi! I've been turning orders down lately because I'm so overwhelmed!

IT'S NOT CHEATING IN MY OPINION AS LONG AS YOU DIDN'T MISLEAD THE CLIENT.

When I first decided that I wanted to break into the business, I thought that I'd use "homemade cakes" as a huge selling point. Well, after makeing a couple of doctored up boxed cakes, I don't know that I could start from scratch (cake & icing) and get a wedding cake done with my schedule. I work a full time job,have 2 small kids, 1 pre-teen and a husband that can't turnaway overtime. So right nowI'm just concentrating on my decorating skills. I just started my first Wilton class just the other day.