From Box or From Scratch?

There’s nothing wrong with boxed cake mix. In case you missed that I’ll repeat: There is nothing wrong with boxed cake mix. How you define homemade may be different from how others do, for me homemade means I mixed some stuff together and put it in the oven; it covers everything from boxed mixes to truly from scratch recipes. Recent trends and worries about additives and high fructose corn syrup have promoted using whole food ingredients to make everything; while some can live the from scratch lifestyle without limitations, I’m not on that list. Even I’m back to looking at flour, butter, eggs, baking powder, sugar and a whole pantry of other ingredients in a whole new light. From scratch has become a badge to wear with pride.

So why do I use boxed cake mixes when I know perfectly well that I could create a nearly identical cake from scratch? For me it’s the fact that cakes are simple. They are readily available and fairly cheap. Chocolate cake, white cake, yellow cake and even red velvet cakes are pretty plain and boring when you really get down to it. What makes great cakes are the additions: fancy extracts and liquors, fruit filling, to die for frosting. If someone were to offer you the choice between chocolate cake and Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake with Chocolate Ganache icing, which one has a better ring to it? Which one would you rather try? (Assuming you’re not allergic to either chocolate or nuts.)

With cake mixes it’s easy to experiment, you’re not changing the basic chemistry that makes a cake a cake when you add a little orange zest or chocolate chips or extract. This rule does have some exceptions, times when truly ‘from scratch’ recipes are called for, but if I can get away with using a cake mix, I’m going to be using a cake mix. Life is too short to spend it worrying about hum-drum basic cake when there are so many more interesting recipes to bake.

That said if you want from scratch I can do from scratch. I started making cakes from scratch in my easy bake oven at age six after watching the cake scene in Pollyanna way to many times and realizing that those cakes were made from flour not easy bake oven cake mix. I remember that first cake well; it was chocolate and having no recipe to go by it was under flavored and quite a bit dry. If I could go back and whisper in my little-self’s ear I’d tell her the secret to making moist flavorful cakes.

So that’s my breakdown on cake mixes. Stay tuned for frosting in a can, bread mix and other episodes of: From Box or From Scratch!