I, too, have been having problems. My cakes are almost too moist. I usually bake, then freeze to make them easier to work with. The DH cakes haven't really been setting up right, and when I unwrap them and put them on the cake circle or stack, they are all wet and gooey like, cooked, but gooey. Also, the white cake mix I've been making is coming out extremely dense, almost heavy. A bit dry as well.
Think I will buy a BC mix and see if its my oven or the mix.
I will report back this weekend.
Glad I read this thread. Was looking for something completely different but this thread caught my eye.

I've never had one sink , I always use the extender recipes from Earlenes site, the one with sour cream . I sift everything though.. I hate the lumps in mixes and find it is much easier to mix them if I have sifted first..
Liz

Hey guys, I tried a cake yesterday that stunned me...It was a birthday cake my mom made and it was the type of cake I used to make with pillsbury plus and DH. I asked what it was and it was an Aldi brand cake mix. It was wonderful!! I don't know if Aldi is nationwide but it is a store that is not traditional like shop and save, dierbergs or schnucks. Their prices are more reasonable and they carry no name brands. I'm going to buy a couple and try them out first but this was the best cake I've had in over a year. I'll let everyone know!!
Vicky

Hi Vicky,
Thanks for the info. I do not have that brand where I live, but I am sure it will really help a lot of bakers! I did send an email to DH about a month ago and never heard back from them about the problems I was having. I am very disappointed and I also will have to start experimenting with other brands.

I've been having problems with it, too. They must have changed something. I switched to Betty Crocker and so far so good.

I have also been having lots of problems with DH mixes for awhile now. I have pretty much switched to BC, and I also sift the mixes (which is a PITA but it really, really makes a difference!!!), and I see a big improvement. I have when companies fix things that aren't broken!!!!!

I am so So sO SO SOOO very sad to hear about all the problems with DH mixes. I have had problems with a few also, but noticed that the mix was out of date. I purchased them at Wal-Mart on sale. Now I know why they put them on sale. If the mix is not old I have good luck with them in both the 2" and 3" pans. I do however use the Tier/Large cake instructions. For the French Vanilla-oven #25, 1 1/4 cups water, 1 tbls oil, and 3 eggs. For the Devels Food and Chocolate-oven 325, 1 1/3 cups water, 1/4 cup oil, and 3 eggs. I ALWAYS use jumbo sized eggs. I noticed that the cake rises better with the jumbos. If I am going to sculpt the cake I add the BC pound cake mix.

The last FV DH mix I made (1 1/2 weeks ago) was in a 3 inch deep pan and came out ok. I crumbled the whole thing and made cake balls. Now I'm scared . I am selling a cake for a 4 yrolds BD next week. I have a back up scratch chocolate receipe, but not one for the vanilla. I am keeping my fingers crossed that I no problems. If I do, you can bet I will let DH know about it.

I made a 12 X 15 sheet out of DH Devil's food for my dh a couple of weeks ago. The only problem I had, was when I left it on the table, and came back a while later, it was a lot smaller than when I started. My 2 boxers had ate almost half of it. I had to start over again. 2nd one came out ok. Chrysb

I have been using DH for years, and baked 10 cakes on Sunday and every one of them came out perfect. Although I don't bake the straight box, I use extenders. I hate Betty Crocker (they cakes are DRY) and that is about all that is available in my area. So I hope DH has changed!

I have noticed they have gone to full dairy. But all cake mixes now say dairy on them..I don't know of a brand that isn't dairy (if you do, let me know!)

yes.. so i have...customer said the cake was really mosit in the middle almost like it was underdook, or got wet..i have also notice my cake sinking in the middle sometimes, i thought it was something i was doing..glad to know its not....

Has no one heard from DH? I can't believe it. I think we should all send them an email. My FV cakes are so full of holes and slightly dry. I used to say that you can't mess up a DH cake no matter what you do. I guess they proved me wrong. It is such a relief to hear that everyone is experiencing this and it isn't just me.

Decorators Unite... email them!!
http://www.pinnaclefoodscorp.com/contactpinnacle/ContactUs.Aspx?CommentBrandName=duncanhines

I too emailed them, and told them that I was a member of this site and so many people are having issues with this problem, and maybe it's something they should seriously address because that's thousands of sales they will be losing.

As a matter of fact I did see alot of holes in my cake after it baked. I will be going to Aldi's to try their cake mix. Thanks for the info..............

I sent 2 emails to Pinnacle foods this morning and got answers from both!!! The first was to complain about the low quality of the French Vanilla (holes). They said thank you and that they would send it to the Marketing and Product Development.

The second was to the the commercial foods division asking about getting bulk packaging for DH cake mixes. They said, "We recently tried to introduce Duncan Hines® mixes in 5lb bulk bags, but had to discontinue the line due to the lack of interest."
Have any of you seen this? I never heard about it or would surely have ordered a bunch.

If you guys are interested in this sort of thing...please let them know. I think they didn't try to market it too hard or were targeting the wrong consumer group.

(Be sure you email www.pinnaclefoodscorp.com and not pinnaclefoods. That is a different company.)

HI EVERYONE,

[Okay, before I start, I'm gonna warn you ... I'm sure this will be lengthy. Bear with me, though, as it may help someone else .....]

Wow, I thought it was just ME. Glad I ran into this thread!

My experience: for years and years I used only the Pillsbury Plus. They were moist, they baked up very evenly, and they were delicious. THEN......years ago (maybe 15-20 years), they changed their formula. Either added Jell-o Pudding or took it out, I don't recall what they claim they did. DISASTER!!! Cakes came out "muddy" ... like an unbaked mud pie in the center. Sides collapsed somewhat. YUKKK!!

I switched, after calling the company and told that I "must not be following the box directions correctly". Well, DUHHHH! You don't need to be a rocket scientist to follow the directions on a cake mix box! I went to Betty Crocker.

BC just didn't do it for me. The texture wasn't right. They weren't as moist as I had previously made for my Clients. After about a year of experimenting with BC, I changed to DH. Although I don't really care for much about Wilton (that's a whole 'nuther story for a different thread), they gave DH their seal of approval, and it was printed right on the box. So, I switched again.

Success! I've been using DH for my mix-based cakes for a dozen or more years. Within the past year, I have noticed a change, though. First, it was the box design .... that shouldn't mean the mix has changed, should it? It's more a marketing issue (or so I thought).

Next, the directions for changing the proportions for large and/or tiered cakes that were printed inside the box disappeared. Too stupid to figure this was a permanent solution, I failed to write down the proportions.

Then came the troubles: I would bake for longer amounts of time to get the cakes to bake throught completely. After turning out, my beautiful layers would sink ... like the air had been let out of its tires. Sides showed horizontal wrinkles. When I cut apart a layer to see what had gone wrong, I discovered that the top 1/4 had baked up fine, but THE MIDDLE 1/2 HAD COMPRESSED UPON ITSELF AS IF IT HAD SOMEHOW NOT BAKED THROUGH, and the bottom 1/4 (closest to the pan bottom) had baked fine. HORRORS!!!!!!! My gorgeous box cakes that had previously been the envy of all who knew me now looked like a 10-year-old had made them! The very worst offender was the white mix! Well, this could play havoc with my wedding cake business, so Darling Hubby first suggested that I use the metal cake core that I usually use only for 14" and larger cakes. This helped, but only somewhat, as I now had an inner-tube-shaped section of not-quite-baked-cake in my laters. Husband then suggested I investigate methods to "doctor" a box mix.

As most of my cakes were already scratch (I wanted to be different from all the other decorators out there in my area...), the changes at DH were mostly affecting my large sheet cakes ... 18x12, 11x15, etc...... I invested in copies of "The Cake Mix Doctor" and "Chocolate from the Cake Mix Doctor". Both of these books were very helpful.

I spent time on the Internet, researching doctored mixes. Earlene Moore from Texas has some pretty good recipes on her site (www.earlenescakes.com, I think) which I have used with success. I also recommend highly the "White Chocolate Wedding Cake" from the Chocolate Cake Mix Doctor book. I almost never make any straight box mixes now. They're all either scratch OR a "doctored" mix, and I am not too particular about which mix I use.

Unfortunately, DH has lost my business. I have e-mailed them with unsatisfactory results in that they don't respond. Apparently, it doesn't matter to them that there are THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS of cake decorators out here who previously used their mixes and now we CANNOT OR WILL NOT use them because they have changed SOMETHING about the mix.

Here's a novel thought: IF WE ALL COMPLETELY STOP USING DH CAKE MIXES, THEY WILL LOSE MARKET SHARE!!! OBVIOUSLY, THEIR BOTTOM LINE IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE GOODWILL GENERATED FROM HAPPY CUSTOMERS! I THINK WE SHOULD STICK IT TO THEM WHERE IT MATTERS THE MOST ... DON'T BUY THEIR MIXES, AND CONTINUE TO INUNDATE THE COMPANY WITH E-MAILS ABOUT HOW UNHAPPY WE ARE WITH THEIR CURRENT PRODUCT!!!!! Eventually, they might just get the message!

I guess I can't understand WHY they would want to make a change when so many were so happy for so long with a product that was so good! Let's all band together to send the message. And if anyone is successful in obtaining the name and/or e-mail of the corporate president, we should use that to our advantage, too! Send him the e-mails! Send him snail mail! Make his secretary earn her $10/hr. opening letters from disgruntled customers! Maybe he will re-think the MILLIONS he gets paid to market a product that so many are unhappy about! If we work together, WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE!!!

Thanks one and all for being patient enough to help each other! We may be competing with one another for our own "market share", but when it comes down to it, when one of us fails, we all fail, even if it's just a little bit. If we help one another to grow, we all win!

I also switched to BC......I thought it was just ME...but I still doctor my BC mixes....I want to learn some good scratch cakes...but for now I am concentrating on learning the decorating part!

Has anyone noticed that the Wilton symbol does not appear on the DH boxes any more? DH also used to recomment baking in Wilto Decorator Preferre and Performance Pans. This used to be listed on inside panel with the Tier/Large instructions.
I think I might try to emial Wilton to see if/why they have stopped endorsing DH.

Ok- so I sent an email to Pinnacle foods yesterday afternoon and they just emailed me back asking me to call this 1-800 number and have a box of my cake mix with the upc barcode #'s and the Use By date and a bunch of other numbers - so, since I don't make a habit of carrying my boxes of cake mix to work with me I will have to wait until I go home to do that! But I can only call Mon-Fri 9am-5:30pm and since I won't be home from work by that time I guess I'll have to wait until Monday!!

Just wondering if anyone else got this same email and if you called the 800# - just curious what they have to say!

Ok - I'll let you know the outcome when Monday rolls around!!

Thanks
Brandie

Yeah, they sent the same thing to me. Unfortunately, I'm in the process of moving to a different state, and my mixes are in a box somewhere in the garage.

I use two different brand mixes for my cakes, like one DH mix and one pillsbury or betty mix. This seems to work better than using two DH mixes. The texture is more fine crumbed. I pretty much always use the WASC recipe with the two mixes and it comes out great.

Also, I sift my mixes to get out all the lumps. I think that helps a lot with the holes.

Courtney

I had ton's of problems with DH Butter Cake Mix. Sunk in the middle on everyone I made.

Just tried BC mix last week and had really good luck. May be switching myself

I have noticed that the stores around me are BARELY keeping DH on the shelves...just the basic flavors and thats it...Looked like Betty crocker had most of the shelf space in all of the stores.. They might be discontinuing a lot of the flavors

I wonder if this would explain the troubles I've had with my chocolate cakes recently?

I never remember it happening before, but the last 3 chocolate cakes I made from DH mixes have come out gummy, all the way through. I've been adding the stuff from the Enhanced Cake Recipe. Mostly just the chocolate has bothered me.

But I recently purchased DH mixes on sale at Farmer Jack 10 for $10! I have 7 of them left! Akkkkk!

Add me to the list!! I used to only buy DH mixes but I am going to have to change! I have been having problems lately and thought it was something i was doing wrong! Then I started reading this. I have a cake for tomorrow and I had to use what I had (DH) and I split 3 mixes between two 9 x 13 pans. The center sunk! On top of that it didn't rise as much as it used to. THis time it wasn't gooey which it has been doing. I decided to bake another two pans this time I only put one mix in each pan. It was almost the same size as the first!! But it didn't sink in the middle. I cut off a little bit and it just doesn't taste the same to me. I am really disappointed. I hope they "Unfix" whatever they thought they were fixing soon!! Guess I better get busy trying out some of those white scratch cakes!

Here's one more, I wish I'd read this thread sooner, but until early this week I hadn't had any trouble with DH. This time I made an 8" and 3" deep pan enhanced and pudding added to use for a purse cake. (Mixed two of them and made some smaller cakes at the same time.) I thought it would never bake! At one point the top (which had risen about an inch above the pan) was starting to burn, so I cut that off, turned the oven down a little more, and put it back in...another 20 minutes later it wasn't much better, still gooey in the middle. As a last resort, I turned the whole thing into another pan, left them together and put them back in the oven, after a while it looked as if it was finally getting done...I just turned off the oven and left it in there. When I finally took it out and turned it out of the pans, it still was sinking a little and looked rather fudgey, but was edible, so I went ahead and made my purse out of it (it is for a family BD), but I felt like I'd run a marathon trying to get the cake cooked! The smaller cakes cooked all right, but were very dry, even with the extenders in them.

My thoughts were that I'd made the batter too thick, and then the 3" pan is harder to bake through, but now I have to think the mixes were not quite right either.

Maybe we will have to set up a boycott of DH, just to get their attention. Sorry this was so long. Janice

This sounds odd, but when I have trouble with DH chocolate cake not rising, I use cold water in the mix. (Straight from the refrigerator.)

Wish I had time to read this whole thread right now but am heading out the door.......will read with great interest later as I tend to use DH, too, and haven't had any more problems than when I use BC or Pillsbury every once in awhile. In my case, it may be operator error.