to those not from the US...I would imagine that one aspect of why cake mixes are so popular here in the US is that in general we have a less sophisticated palate than in Europe. In GENERAL, Americans are more accustomed to eating things from boxes and mixes and cans and frozen, so a mix cake seems normal.

I would not personally use a mix for anything other than sending cupcakes to preschool, or otherwise feeding it to small children. certainly not if i ever sold cakes!

I use a doctored mix for my high volume cakes....but I try to add so many other things that it gets rid of the "box mix" taste. The doctoring usually works, because an undoctored box mix tastes watery and flavorless to me. When you add milk, butter, pure vanilla, it really makes a huge difference in the outcome in flavor and texture of a box mix.

I do love to bake from scratch...and usually do it for my family and husband, but the economy in my part of Ohio would never support thr prices I'd charge to bake from scratch. It is much more time consuming, and much riskier. When I have a wedding cake for 400 people, I decided early on that the doctored box is the best route. At 2.00/slice, most people don't complain. In fact, people love the flavor of my cakes.

Ironically, my two girlfriends from France came in for my wedding last year, and they just happen to be culinary snobs. They absolutely loved my doctored wedding cake, and were licking the buttercream out of the bowl, and eating leftovers for breakfast. I took that as a great sign, knowing how the French are quite uptight over their pastry!!

So I guess if people in your area love your box mixing, go for it. If they love your scratch baking, go for it!

I can always tell a box mix by the texture and taste. The texture is too "cottony" I think. It crumbles too easily if you bake and decorate it the same day. You have to let it sit until the next day to "set-up". If I use mixes, I always doctor. Chocolate cake, I use black coffee in, etc. I have used them depending on what I had at the time, and the timeframe too. Sometimes it is hard to resist stocking up on the BOGO specials at the grocery store. I would still like to get to a "perfect" and reliable recipe for taste for a scratch cake, but that is the beauty of the box is the quality control.

I took cooking courses (volume feeding) in college as part of my Hospitality Management curriculum. I was told by my professors that I did well at it because I understood "food" from seed, cultivation, production, to table because I grew up in a rural area where scratch-made items were made from food we grew ourselves. And, to quote a comment on another board. "church ladies know how to cook". There is something about the recipes handed down and around in a small town community where all the girls learned to cook from our mother's and grandmothers.

I live in Miami, FL (big city) now and I get "orders" for things because there are so many women my age (37) that have no clue when I comes to cooking ANYTHING! Something that is simply first nature to me totally mystifies them. I call it survival skills.

I am fat and quite homely looking, but my husband has stuck around me for 20yrs now (married 10 of them). He likes to eat, I must be doing something right. My high school home-ec teacher (sr yr in Miami) had something to say about that when she came across a classmate (diva) trying to "peel" the egg like it was going to explode or something when she was trying to make a box mix cake in class. The girl had no clue how to crack an egg! I nearly peed my pants when teacher went hysterical on her telling her, "Are you kidding me? You are 18yrs old and you've never cracked an egg before? Honey, the pretty gets old, the sex gets old, it don't matter how good you are in bed, if you can't cook, you ain't gonna keep your husband!" I think my teacher had seen it all that day. I don't think you could get away with saying that these days. But that was 20yrs ago. I loved Mrs. Ross. The class was an easy A for me. I needed a class to fill the gap inbetween the last class I needed to graduate. Kids today are brought up on drive-thru and it is sad. And, all the grocery store do decorate frozen cakes shipped in from the commissary with tubs of flavorless oversweet crisco icing. It is terrible. So, yes, people are willing to pay for homemade, scratch or not.

BINKY, I loves you! and I thinks your PURTY...lol................I am in Miami too!!!!

Well- I use both scratch and doctored boxed cakes. I go by the final taste of my cake not weather I used a box mix or not. My Chocolate cake, Carrot cake, lemon cake and any special dietary needs cakes are all made from scratch. My white cake, yellow cake, strawberry cake and orange cream cake are all either white or yellow cake mixes doctored up. Ironically when I have had tastings people can't tell the difference. I have had people ask if any were from box mixes, usually I say which do you think might be? They always get it wrong! Everyone who has tasted my white cake thinks it is from scratch. Until I find scratch recipes that taste better than the box mixes doctored I will use them. As for allergies, I use the same mixer for products with nuts and such as I do for all my cakes. I would always tell someone with a nut allergy that. I cannot guarantee that there are no traces of any ingredient in a final product. I don't think it matters if you are using a box mix or not, if you use the same equipment for all your baking there is a slight chance that a nut oil could get into a non-nut product.

I think the mixes have come a long way from when they first were introduced and it is much harder to tell the difference between a mix and ascratch cake these days. I have compared cost and my doctored recipes are no cheaper than my scratch recipes, in fact they are more conveinient as I always have ingredients on hand, but I sometimes have to make a special trip to the store for a box mix.

Just my 2-cents!

i do think there's a definite difference in european tastes and american. i've tried madeira cake on 3 different groups of people, the response was along the lines of it would go great with coffee, but not really cake to just eat! i think we in the US are sooo used to processed, high fat foods, that scratch just typically isn't "moist enough" i DONT have any problem whatsoever selling a cake made from a box- im a cake DECORATOR, not a cake baker. now i doctor up my mixes a lot, by time i'm done the consistency is that of a scratch, when i see an undoctored mix, it looks soo soupy. cost wise, it's probably a wash between scratch and box mix for me. although the "better scratch white cake" recipe on here is great. also, i think a lot of american kids are used to getting their cakes from target or meier, (grocery stores) the moms don't even have time to mix up a box mix a lot of times, so i know mine taste better than that. i figure people are also paying me for the convienience of getting a cake that is homemade, but not scratch. oh and i deliever for free in my area.

I guess as far as the NUT allergy, I always say,

"My house is full of NUTS, and everything baked here has come in contact with NUTS! The baker included. So, if you are allergic to NUTS, stay away, stay far, far away! I don't mean to discriminate, but only Nutty people are welcome here..."

What can I say, I used to be a squirrel in a past life.

I always think of this story when this topic comes up. My ex-husband's grandmother was HARD to please. She was very particular about anything and everything. She didn't like my mother-in-law (her daughter-in-law) and really didn't like me. She thought she was the only woman who should be in her "boys'" lives and really thought she was the only one who could cook.

After taking many cakes, desserts, etc., and always having them shot down, my MIL asked me to do a cake for a holiday one year. It was a Betty Crocker Golden Vanilla cake - not doctored, just straight from the box (I figured she would hate it no matter what) - with buttercream. I put it in my regular box and we took it to the gathering. The grandmother just assumed it was purchased from our local bakery. She took one bite and then said "Brenda (that was my MIL) this is how you make cake. It's not one of those nasty mixes like you always use." She ended up eating two HUGE pieces of cake AND wanted to keep the leftovers!

From then on out, she would ask my husband to pick up one of those cakes at the bakery when we were going to her house!

I am in search of a scratch mix that tastes like Betty Crocker's Chocolate Fudge Cake to use for my cake balls, as I have to label those and don't like having a list a mile long!!!

People rarely ask, but if they do I say I often use Duncan Hines with added ingredients, because it is very reliable for the shaped cakes. I also inform them I offer some scratch cakes as well and I do charge a little extra for them (especially the pound cake which is very expensive to make.)

Most people never suspect I used boxed mixes as I add lots of pure vanilla, sometimes pudding, extra eggs, and make sure it bakes up nice and moist. Then the butter from the buttercream soaks into the cake and people usually think its just wonderful. I'm sure most of my customers would be shocked to know that most of what I sell is simply Duncan Hines, doctored up a bit. Most people say the cake tastes way better than "normal bakery cakes".

southerncake- that is a HOOT. i LOVE that story. why are some people in this world just so full of hate and criticism, maybe that box mix has helped to sweeten her up over time.

I have to jump in here. I think it's funny how much I hear/read "I can always tell a box mix by the texture and taste" and "I add things to get rid of the "box mix" taste". I had a customer (I made a duplicate of her wedding cake for her 20th anniversery) come to me after the party and tell me how much better my cake was than her original wedding cake. She said "The bakery used a box mix. I can always tell a box mix, but your cake was so much better! A scratch cake always tastes so much better and is so much more moist!" I had to chuckle after she left. Not only did I use a mix - I didn't even doctor it! I just smiled and said "Thank you!" My husband laughed.

I have a couple scratch recipes I make but most of what I make is from a mix. Some doctored - some not.

Debbie

Well, for all of you "scratch" makers here, why don't you let us in on your best recipes so we can see for ourselves. I have tried scratch cake after scratch cake and my customers ask what's wrong with the cake. I tell them that i was trying a new recipe and they tell me to stick to my old one. Of course, I usually just try new recipes on the people at church, but even so...they're honest. I keep trying to get great from scratch recipes and none everr work out. I'm a great baker by the way, I just haven't found a good scratch cake recipe. I can make great pies and cobblers from scratch including the crust. I just want good cake recipes. So, those of you who are so knowledgeable about scratch recipes, please enlighten us so we can turn from our ways of baking with a mix. Thanks!

Well- I have yet to find a good yellow or white cake scratch recipe and would love to find them.

As for chocolate, try the chocolate layer cake in the recipe section. I will never go back to a box mix chocolate cake!

Risque! Where in Miami are you? I am in "South" Kendall by Country Walk. I am not technically in the "biz" yet, but been thinking/planning seriously for years. I now have three young kids and a messed up right arm from a Rottwieler attack five years ago. But, I see so many changes in the industry over the past few years, gumpaste flowers you can purchase instead of make for instance. Some of these "details" I could buy ready made since I no longer have the dexterity in my arm anymore. I posted my story on another board about edible images. I want to get into personalized decorated cookies for instance using edible images. I would love to make cakes that taste like "Lucila" (if you are in Miami, you know SweetArt). I love her rum cake and can eat the whole cake myself. I wish I had THAT recipe just so I can bake it for myself when I get the hankering! I do not like her chocolate cake so much. When I was working, we used to order her cake every month for the birthday club. Now, I am a SAHM with my little monster 18 mo twins and 4yr old girl. If only I could find a small bakery I could just apprentice at part time or even "rent" kitchen space somewhere closeby. I do not have the startup capital to open a full fledged shop yet, I am always hoping for the lottery. Do you sell from home? I am always wary about adventuring out on this aspect other than close family and friends, but so many do it here. In the past, I decorated cakes by word of mouth. I gave it up five years ago when the attack happened. Don't you know I had a babyshower cake due the next morning? My husband had to call them and tell them what happened. I was devasted and now my artistic outlet is gone. But, this site has been encouraging and inspiring. Whether scratch or mix, I love cake. Thanks.

All I'm sayin' is...once again, is, if you knew who used BOX MIXES...you wouldn't believe it! I wish I could get ...ahem...the BIG BUCKS like some Food Network star that bakes cakes...not mentioning ANY names...for using...that's right folks...BOXED CAKE MIXES , in HIS creations, I'dd be a HAPPY CAMPER! His clients NEVER aks if HIS cakes are from scratch...and I don't think HE tells either! I guess it's not what's IN the cake, so much as how that cake is DECORATED!!!

I bake only from scratch, partly because I love the process and partly because I grew up in a scratch-only house. Believe it or not, I didn't even know box mixes existed until I got to college!

Dede Wilson has an interesting article in her Wedding Cake Book that talks about the difference between American and European cakes. She claims that Americans have grown accustomed to cakes with an unusually high moisture content in part due to box mixes, and that is why she adds moistening syrup to her layers -- to please the American palate. I thought this was an interesting observation, and I have to agree. When I visit European cities, especially Paris and Vienna, I always head straight for the pastry shops (of course!). In my opinion, their cakes are far denser and much less sweet than traditional American cakes. Don't get me wrong -- I enjoy both! I don't think one is any better than the other; they are just different. And I can easily see why the concept of box mixes does not translate.