Do you ever wish you could bake that seems homemade but never seems to come out right? We may have an easy option for you! This is a little different from previous posts as this is for both DIY and for money-saving tips. We try to do a lot of the work for birthday parties but the biggest issue we have run into in the past is the cake. We don’t necessarily bake all that often and usually it comes down to a box mix. Trying to find a boxed cake mix trick was pretty easy but needed to be changed a little. These are fine but it always feels like something is missing. Typically we prefer to do store-bought cakes but they can get expensive quick.
Part of the problem with box mixes is that it comes out feeling almost flat. Flavors may be okay but somehow just misses the mark. The cakes tend to be moist but crumbles more than it should which makes decorating it difficult at times. With a few changes to the ingredients, you can make the cake taste as it came straight from the baker. This doesn’t add any time to the prep time but may take a little planning.
I was a little skeptical but I think this is the best cake I have ever made and dare say that it came pretty close to a bakery cake. It came out a little denser than the typical recipe as was as moist. The flavor seemed to correct itself from the usual “box mix” change. We did this boxed cake mix trick for our daughter’s birthday and people couldn’t believe that it wasn’t store-bought!
What do you need
So the alterations to the box recipe are easy and doesn’t add any time to the process. Here are the items that you need to gather to get started
- Boxed cake mix (Doesn’t matter on the flavor)
- 4 Eggs
- Butter ( 1 ¾ times the amount of oil that the recipe calls for)
- Milk instead of water
- Frosting of your choice
How to bake.
For the most part, you will use the instructions that are on the back of the cake mix box but will replace the ingredients slightly
- Preheat the oven to the temperature on the box
- Grease the cake pan with nonstick spray if needed
- Add Cake mix to the bowl and add milk in equal parts
- melt the butter and add that to mix
- Add the 4 eggs to the mix and stir until completely blended
- Cooking times will vary so use the time on the back of the box.
Is it really that good?
I was a little hesitant as the mix is slightly more watery than the typical cake mix. However, with the boxed cake mix trick, the cake came out perfect. I checked it several times to make sure that the cooking time was indeed the same. This cake was moist but held together better than I expected and didn’t have the easy crumble that is typical of box mixes. We did this with a chocolate cake mix which was great. The butter adds a lot of flavor compared to using the oil. But if you are concerned that the recipe would be too buttery with a vanilla cake, cut the recipe back by 2 tablespoons. We actually had several people try the cake after we made it and they couldn’t tell that it was from a box. If you want to include additions in the recipe such as nuts, chocolate chips or candies, you shouldn’t need to alter the wet ingredient ratio.
Have you tried this before? What did you think? Let us know in the comments below!