Cake Decorating Community - Cakes We Bake

Good morning everyone,

I wanted to know if anyone has doctored the Betty Crocker cake box mix before?  If so, what's involved in it? What additional ingredients would you put?  And does this give you more batter per box?

Any thoughts or your experience would be great!!


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Hi Linda,

Great! So you would still add the 1tsp of vanilla?  And any type of cocoa powder will do?  Obviously a good brand...i use FRYS Cocoa sold here in Canada....

Linda Wolff said:

...and then add one to two tablespoons of cocoa powder, Meera. That's what I do for the chocolate mixes.

Meera said:

I wanted to confirm how I would doctor a chocolate box mix...

This is what Linda Wolff suggested for any mix....but how would you alter for chocolate?

- add the 1 cup of flour, 1 cup sugar, 4 eggs total, 1 tsp. vanilla (or other flavoring, depending on what you are going for) 1 cup sour cream, 1/3 cup veg. oil and 1 cup water.

Thank you!!

Thanks June and Tamara for your input!! :)


June Kowalczyk said:

When I "doctor" my chocolate cake mix, instead of just plain water, I put in a heaping Tblsp of instant, or expresso instant coffee in the "warmed" water. This really brings out the chocolate flavor.  2 eggs, oil, + oil to replace other 2 eggs required. 2 heaping Tblsp of dutch cocoa. 2 Tblsp meringue powder as it increases the volume of your cake mix. 1/2 cup of either sour cream/yogurt/mayo/pudding...whatever of these I have on hand for x-tra moistness.  Turns out rich & moist every time.  :0)

Ya, you can use Fry's. When I went a deep chocolate flavor, I buy the dutch cocoa at Bulk Food Barn.

:0)

Yes, I still use the vanilla as well.

Meera said:

Hi Linda,

Great! So you would still add the 1tsp of vanilla?  And any type of cocoa powder will do?  Obviously a good brand...i use FRYS Cocoa sold here in Canada....

Linda Wolff said:

...and then add one to two tablespoons of cocoa powder, Meera. That's what I do for the chocolate mixes.

Meera said:

I wanted to confirm how I would doctor a chocolate box mix...

This is what Linda Wolff suggested for any mix....but how would you alter for chocolate?

- add the 1 cup of flour, 1 cup sugar, 4 eggs total, 1 tsp. vanilla (or other flavoring, depending on what you are going for) 1 cup sour cream, 1/3 cup veg. oil and 1 cup water.

Thank you!!

I also doctor cake mixes....I just figure the mix is the base and what I add to it makes it more like a scratch cake.  The possiblilities are endless.  Play with it and see what new flavors you can come up with!

so you're all using the 15oz boxes of bc with the original additional ingredients?  (its the recipe i use too) but i have stayed away from BC because they shrunk their boxes.  if it still works i can go back!!

I try to use Duncan Hines mostly. I just used a Pillsbury yesterday for a cake and was it ever small!! Very disappointing with it, so back to DH for me!

Selina DiCesare said:

so you're all using the 15oz boxes of bc with the original additional ingredients?  (its the recipe i use too) but i have stayed away from BC because they shrunk their boxes.  if it still works i can go back!!

June, what about Ghirardelli chocolate powder??

June Kowalczyk said:

Ya, you can use Fry's. When I went a deep chocolate flavor, I buy the dutch cocoa at Bulk Food Barn.

:0)

Well, for the sake of science, I decided to try experimenting with 1 cake mix by adding a little more flour, sugar, eggs, etc. to a standard cake mix to see if it would change the composition any, and to see if I came out with a quality cake. Here is what I did: I used an 18.25 oz. package of Moist Supreme Chocolate cake mix by Pillsbury.  Then, I added 1-1/2 cups of all purpose flour, 1-1/2 cups sugar, 1-1/2 cups buttermilk, 5 eggs, 1 cup mayonnaise, 1/2 cup veg. oil, 1/2 tsp. baking soda, 1 tbsp. real vanilla, 3 tbsp. dutch chocolate cocoa powder, 2 tbsp. black cocoa powder. I mixed up all of the dry ingredients first to get them all blended throughout the mix, then added the buttermilk, mayo, oil, and eggs. Added the vanilla last. It ended up being a very dense batter, just like the actual mix is on it's own. It yielded just under 8 cups of batter. I poured the batter into 3-8" round pans (after putting cake release on them-no parchment this time) and baked them like normal. I just took two of the pans out and the cakes popped right out of the pans. Since I only have 2 eight inch pans, the other cake is still in the oven. Each cake took about 2-1/2 cups of batter to fill with about a tbs. more added to each pan.  I haven't done a taste test yet. My husband is good for that, so when he gets home, he will be the taste tester. I would have tried it with sour cream, but just didn't have any on hand, and I have made mayo cakes before and they are always so moist.

Linda Wolff said:

I try to use Duncan Hines mostly. I just used a Pillsbury yesterday for a cake and was it ever small!! Very disappointing with it, so back to DH for me!

Selina DiCesare said:

so you're all using the 15oz boxes of bc with the original additional ingredients?  (its the recipe i use too) but i have stayed away from BC because they shrunk their boxes.  if it still works i can go back!!

Ok

My 2 cents worth Linda. When I "doctor" a cake mix, I really don't add that much. Extra oil/sour cream/mayo. If chocolate, then stong coffee intead of just water.  If I was going to add all the ingredients you add, you might as well make the whole cake from scratch.  My last cake was a scratch cake from a combo of a internet search and a recipe from The Cake Bible book. Addition of meringue pwdr, which doubled the cake batter volume.

My concern mostly, June, is if the makers of these mixes are going to start cutting down on the size of the mixes, I still want to be able to make a cake that is a good size without having to use two mixes vs. one. Plus, I do want my cakes to have more of a scratch taste to them. So, I am only using the actual cake mix as my 'base' and then doctoring them up so that they have that scratch home baked flavor. Once the cakes that I made this morning cooled, I was able to try a little of what sticks to the waxed paper when you take them out of the pan, and this one with the mayonnaise ended up being an outstanding cake flavor! I was still able to use only one box of mix and came out with nice sized 8" layers and I got a full 3 layers out of it. I'm a happy camper. My experiment worked for me. I know I could just make a scratch cake, but this did cut down on some time and it was worth it.

June Kowalczyk said:

Ok

My 2 cents worth Linda. When I "doctor" a cake mix, I really don't add that much. Extra oil/sour cream/mayo. If chocolate, then stong coffee intead of just water.  If I was going to add all the ingredients you add, you might as well make the whole cake from scratch.  My last cake was a scratch cake from a combo of a internet search and a recipe from The Cake Bible book. Addition of meringue pwdr, which doubled the cake batter volume.

i haven't read an other posts but did you hear that Duncan Hines is reducing their size too.

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