I have just made my third white or yellow mix cake, and I NEVER like the taste, which always seems so "chemically" to me.

I find my scratch cakes are MUCH nicer.....but take a LOT of eggs, and so cost more....a little. And they are more pleasant to work with.

Do people prefer mixes for the flavour, the convenience, or some other reason?

*sigh* after making the cake tonight, I feel like pitching it and starting over with a scratch cake, but I'm charging a stupidly low price (friend who knows a lot of people) and it's such a huge waste of a cake that is probably fine.......

This round cake is going to sit on a 9x13 cake, which I AM going to make from scratch. I'm fed up with all the pudding and mix in my house LOL! and I don't like the results.

If anyone has a GOOD scratch cake recipe that doesn't use 6 eggs for an 8" square, I'd LOVE it. I do mostly carved and 3D cakes, so far, so I need something firm and yet not heavy.

I have used the cake mix extender recipe on this site a few times now with different kinds of cake mix. It makes a pretty big difference in taste. I ususally do not like the cake mix cakes at all, but this cake always turns out great. No one can ever believe it is not scratch. I would say it makes the cake slightly more dense (which would be good for carving) and stays so moist. Hope that helps....

~Katie

Chyna, I make all my cakes from scratch, I use freerange eggs which are more expensive and just pass on the costs to the clients. I think you can't really beat scratch cakes. My most popular recipe is a firm buttercake which i fill with all sorts of different fillings, and you can also change the vanilla for lemon or chocolate essence to completely change the flavour.

100gms of softened butter (not margarine)
200gms of castor sugar
240gms self raising flour
2/3 cup of milk
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
Cream butter and sugar, once fluffy and creamy, add one egg at a time beating well after adding each one. Add vanilla and then start adding sifted flour alternating with the milk. Bake in an 8 inch round tin for about 45 minutes or until done. For an 8 inch square you'd use 1.5 to 2 recipes depending on how high your pans are. I have other scratch recipes that i use a lot. Let me know if you want any of them. Send me a pm.
cheers
Nati

If you're not confident with the results of your mix cakes, then don't use them. Sure, a mix cake is a little faster and maybe a little cheaper to make (by a few cents) but YOU have to feel they are worthy of selling to your clients. If you don't think they measure up, you won't feel terribly proud of your work and have in the back of your mind that you're clients are not getting as good as you can make. You won't enjoy your work.

So forget the extra few minutes and the tiny bit of cash saved, just add the extra cost to your bill and don't fret about that either: they're getting, in YOUR opinion, a better product worth the extra dollar or two.

You have to feel good about what you're producing!

Some people like mixes and can play with them so they taste great. They won't have problems selling it if they believe in their cakes' quality. If you don't, then change what you make so that you too will be proud of the results.

And you can then add to your sales pitch something like "all cakes are lovingly made from scratch, just like grandma use to do". (The fact some people's grandmas use mixes shouldn't enter into it, it's a GOOD SALES PITCH!)

I have to admit I tried the Doctored cake mixes and pudding and extender etc and never liked the cake, to me it still tasted like a store bought cake.

I've gone back to making my cakes from scratch and I just love them. Get rave reviews all the time. So cake mixes were a temporary experiment for me.

I also prefer scratch baking....thanks mamafrogcakes for posting the link. I don't like the chemical taste of mixes even doctored ones, but its just a personal preference. I know lots of people like them. I'm sure they are a bit cheaper, but I would just pass along the additional expense on to the customer. I also recommend that you find yourself a nice set of good recipes you enjoy and get good results from. This way you get great results each time. I have my set of recipes, and when I want to experiment on a new flavor, I get on CC and ask for a tried and true recipe. Every1 is so nice and quick to respond and I know I am getting a recipe that will turn out. I use to search on the internet and try recipes, but I got too many flops. I'd rather get them from my CC buddies!

Berta

I started out doing all scratch cakes and then decided to do mixes as well. Being able to offer both gives the customer lots of options.

I always made cakes from scratch until I started on this site and I heard all the rave reviews from the CMD book, so I purchased the book and I have been through about 8 of the recipes and they all have that "chemical" taste to me as well.....no one else seems to notice but to me it's like a huge taste difference.......I'd say do what your feel most confident doing, for me, I've gone back to scratch cakes. My eldest daughter loves the CMD book because she hates baking from sctach, so I think it's an individual preference.

Thanks everyone for your input, it's very interesting.

When you offer the choice, do you tell clients they are chosing mix or scratch, or just offer the taste test options?

I'm NOT confident about the mixes and that's enough to make me worry about the results.....LOL! I just fretted that some people are used to that cake mix taste and prefer it......I guess I'll just make the cakes I feel best about. I find a mix cake is more frustrating for me, because I don't stock those things in my kitchen normally, and have to remember to buy pudding, etc, which are not staples for my kitchen. Scratch doesn't take much longer, and I was surprised to find it wasn't much cheaper.

I CAN do a mix, but i'm not sure how I would offer it?

i definitely can relate to deciding between scratch and mix. i prefer the taste of scratch, i, too, dislike the "chemical" taste of a cake mix. they both have their pros and cons. i used a recipe off this site last week for a doctored cake that got really good reviews but the minute my mom tasted it she said, "this is a mix". she can ALWAYS tell the difference. i have yet to find a doctored recipe that can fool her. plus, i landed up spending more money on that cake then i do for my scratch ones due to all the extra ingredients.

the only problem i have with baking from scratch is that is dries out faster then the cake mixes, i think if i can find a scratch recipe that has the perfect balance of butter and oil added to it, i might have a winner!

what about simple syrup? I keep hearing to use that on a scratch cake. Any comments?

if you make a cake from scratch-dont throw away the boxed cake..use it to make cake balls...

if you make a cake from scratch-dont throw away the boxed cake..use it to make cake balls...

cake balls = truffle cakes?

i dont know if cake balls are the same as truffle cakes? i just seen a recent post on them and i cant wait to try them-they use left over cake scraps..happy baking gizmo

Cake balls are VERY sweet little globs of frosting and cake dipped in chocolate. They do not taste like little cakes. My dh will eat anything and the cake balls hung around for a week before I finally pitched them. Some people love them. I added peanut butter to some and that improved the flavor, but they were still just in the so-so category. At a party or at work, people would probably happily gobble those things.

I can ignore the chemical taste of cake mix, but I prefer scratch due to the richness of flavor. I tried adding butter and milk to cakemix and it just tasted like sweet cornbread to me. It was like a bad scratch white cake. Ditto for the cakemix extender. Again, I think many people would be happy with the cakemix as that's what they make at home.

The yellow cakemix is the only one that I just plain don't like. They just taste like one giant chemical with a weird coconut aftertaste. Doctoring the yellow mix just gives the sweet cornbread taste. I gave up and used DH pineapple or coconut this summer. I actual coconut cakemix was ok.

You don't save any money if you use doctored cake recipes which add pudding, butter, milk, extra eggs, and/or sourcream. I enjoy baking so I'd rather have a naked cake that tastes wonderful, than a decorated cake that tastes ho-hum. Ok, my 5yr olds bday cake will probably be ho-hum as 5yr olds are not known for their discerning palates.

I love cake. I can not resist a good piece of cake and I want to make cakes that others can't resist. Folow your heart. This is your work/hobby and you have to do what pleases you.

oookay, I can see this topic stirs some cake politics (who knew?) LOL

I think it boils down to that I've tried the mix and find I don't like it, personally, and so I fret over the quality and taste of the cake I've just spent hours to carve and decorate AND the cake doesn't carve nearly as well as my scratch cake, so I will aim for scratch cakes as my personal standard of baked goods.

I didn't find that there was much difference pricewise, either, which surprised me, as that was one of the main reasons I was leaning towards mixes.

I thank you all for your input on this, because I was feeling a bit frustrated. I'm so new to the realm of cake decorating that it's hard to know what my "heart" sense of it is, sometimes...but I do know that this is the fourth mix cake i've done and I've never been happy with them, so I think it's becoming clearer.

I use mixes..the last tiem they were on sale i bought 6 cases. They're simple and versatile and most importantly, they're consistent...i find that you cant really be consistent with a scratch cake...but this is just my opinion...i love to bake, but i've thrown out at least 30 scrath cakes for one reason or another and i've jsut given up. I use the mix with the extender recipe and everyone loves it!

I don't get why( if you like mix and that's ok by me) would you want your cake to taste like scratch (if you don't like sctach especially)
Scratch cakes are a different then box mix ....they cannot be compared.
It' what you prefer!!!!
I love baking from scratch.

AShiana

Maria,
How exactly do you fold the eggs into the batter? I tried Matha's white cake and the Silver Anniversary cake. I know I messed up somewhere as both cakes were extremely crumbly.

I'll be fat and happy this winter. I have the baking 911 yellow recipe to try, the one Aitza posted, and now yours. Yummmm!

Thanks! Folding in the egg whites is absolutely a new skill for me.

I use a cake mix but with an ingredient that add quality flavor, That you can not tell it is a mix. Most of my customers never ask if I bake from scratch and I don't claim to either. I never disclose anything about how my cakes are made to my customers. I just tell them the flavor choices they have and that is all.

I don't think alracntna was suggesting cheating at all. I think she was trying to let others know that using a cake mix - as only one ingredient in the cake is basically 'from scratch'.

And I agree. Lots of these 'doctored' mixes - are mostly additional flour, pudding, sour cream, eggs, oil, etc. The addition of a 'mix' is simply a stabilizing factor.

I've read a lot of alracntna's posts and I find her to be of the highest integrity and I really appreciate her knowledge and motivational posts that help the rest of us newbies.

We're all trying to do the best we can.