After years of trying, I finally found a good homemade chocolate cake recipe. Other kinds of cakes, for some reason, were easier for me to find recipes for. Recipes that worked. For Me! That is. Even so, I still keep cake mixes around and use them probably about as often as I bake from scratch. Always, though, I prefer to make my own frostings. I think your own frostings give even a non-scratch cake a bit of homemade flavor.
I really don't like cake mixes. I know there are a lot of people that use them, but they have a fluffy light texture that seems so artificial to me. Mainly, because I could never get that fluffy light texture baking from scratch! Most of my cakes are a little heavy and dense, honestly I am just not a great baker. But I have been to some amazing european bakeries in my life, so I have tasted some amazing cakes and pastries. So I don't know, I'll don't think I ever get used to the taste of boxed mixes.
Yeah. I know what you mean about the fluffy light texture. My scratch cakes are always more dense than the mix ones. They're not really heavy, just heavier than the mix kind. There just seems to be more to a cake made from scratch--as if the mix ones were made from the barest essentials. Which, I guess, they probably are if you don't count all the di-tri-glycer-sodiumites.
I usually prefer never to use cake mix and I think it is quite good that I love to make my cake from scratch. It is best if we realise how well we can prepare a cake by scratch rather than just trying out certain mixes.
I use both, it depends on timing and what ingredients I have to hand. If I don't have any and I only have a cake to make then I will get a cheat box mix, but if I am experimenting and know I will do some heavy baking then I will do it from scratch. I do check all the ingredients on packs anyhow and those with too much in I steer clear of.
