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shouldn't your control cake been made using the regular directions, not lower-fat?

Love this idea for a column, by the way!

This is so interesting. I used to LOVE box mix cakes and would even eat the icing with a spoon straight from the tub, but now I make everything from scratch. Lately I've been wondering if I would still like a Betty Crocker cake. I used to like Sara Lee pound cake and now I think it tastes like some kind of plastic foam. I'm too grossed out by the partially hydrogenated icing even to try it again. I can't wait to see what else you make!

I would find it interesting to compare the supermarket mixes compared to homemade pre made flour mixes.

oooh - my all time fave dessert is my mom's chocolate bundt cake which is made with none other than a box of yellow cake mix. i dream of it at night and i really don't think it could ever taste as good as it does with just some normal, old "bake it from scratch" recipe. so there ya go!

I haven't had a boxed mix since high school, I think, but I have memories of loving the strawberry cake (either Betty Crocker or Duncan Hines) and Ghirardelli Brownie Mix. I thought about making the strawberry cake a few years ago but realized it has artificial food coloring and I have since developed an allergy to food coloring. =(

Years ago when I was first married, we moved to Paris and there were NO packaged mixes for anything. I learned how to make everything from brownies to english muffins from scratch. I even had a recipe for a lamb marinade which included Catalina Salad dressing so I had to figure out an equivalent home-made sauce which would work. Anyway, what I know now that globalization has spread these products around the world...homemade brownes are one type of chocolate dessert and the mix ones are another. They are both good in their context and which I make is determined by which I feel like eating. I am not very much of a cake person so if I am making a cake I will probably make it from scratch. Cupcakes for school however--cake mix all the way!

The box mixes can offer convenience and texture, and as that woman whose career is based on modifying mixes shows, you can gussy up a mix with some pretty good results - mostly by adding flavored liquids, using melted butter and so on. Home made frosting is still required. But eating one of these will still make you feel pretty ill if you're used to eating "clean" food. I have seen mixes in the health food store out here in California however, and I would imagine that they are both tasty and cheaper than Ina Garten's and they even have some organic ingredients. Bottom line: despite eating many grown up cakes in my day, the box cake of childhood is still my vanilla scented, moist and lavishly frosted standard by which all cake eating is compared. This is a fun idea... look forward to seeing how it al turns out.

I personally don't see a problem with boxed cakes. However, after a week it needs to hit the garbage can. Other than that if you have a time crunch and you want something sweet there perfect and cheap.

Next time, follow the default recipe on the box, and don't pick a low rated cake mix (Duncan Hines got a poor rating).

Cook's Country rated the Betty Crocker Butter Recipe Yellow the highest.

http://www.slashfood.com/2006/12/04/cooks-country-tests-cake-mixes/

Growing up I did not realize that mking a ckae from scratch was an option. Both my single mother and grandmother worked full time. But I did know what bakery cake tasted like and it was BETTER. Paula Deen uses cake mix in her Ooey-Gooey cakes and while some love them, I still detect that fake box batter taste. I adore the pink iced vanilla cake at Amy's Breads and the Crumb's vanilla cupcake is worth the 780 calories. Boxed cakes are not every worth the calories.

I make wedding cakes for a living, and I can't help but think that it would be would be awfully nice to have 10 days (!) to do my design work on the cake-but happily for my brides all my cakes are made from scratch, so I've usually got a 48 hour window to bake and get my design work done.

I don't have very strong feelings about box cakes, pro or con, although they are not as fun to make. But I definitely agree with those think you should have made the box according to the directions. Otherwise, you'll need to use applesauce on all the other tested cakes.

And of course, the applesauce probably increased the sweetness, too.

Box cakes are great for people who don't plan to bake very often. They are so tolerant of over/under mixing and baking--it's virtually impossible to screw it up. The same is not true for most scratch cakes. For people who are not interested in mastering the craft of cake baking, I wouldn't fault them for not wanting to spend the time, energy, and money to end up with a product that they don't like.

How do you compare all box mixes when your control cake is made using the "lighter" version and iced? And then you want to compare it to a lemon bar mix or a crepe mix...how do you compare those to an iced marble fudge cake?

You are just doing taste tests of different box mixes, which will be interesting and helpful when in a pinch, but you can't use your "control" cake for comparisons.

I bake some pretty big birthday cakes and use Moist deluxe only. Usually 4 mixes divided into 2 big pans.Forget the tubs, I make a peanut butter/cream cheese whipped mousse filling, A milk chocolate frosting made with hershey kisses then covered with a chocolate ganache. For a good size birthday party there isn't a crumb left. It prob. weighs in at 25lbs or so!!!! Requested all the time.

My mom has a "Cake Doctor" book, which is all recipes that involve adding things to cake mixes. I recently made a rum cake with yellow cake mix and vanilla pudding mix (not a real rum cake, I know), and my co-workers raved about it -- especially the rum-pecan glaze I made with brown sugar and butter. And I'm crazy, but I love the batter. I like homemade best, but the results can be mixed. Sometimes the cake comes out too small or too dry.