All-New Cake Mix Doctor - Anne Byrn [3]
I stick by my original philosophy that you can fool everyone by doctoring up a cake mix but you must make your own frosting. Yes, we’re busier than ever. So it’s good to know that you don’t need to bake a cake from scratch for it to be good. But canned frostings? You can easily make better frostings in your own kitchen, and I will show you how.
The Older We Get . . .
Believe it or not, baking improves as we age. As we taste new foods, travel, try a new pan, weigh tried-and-true ingredients against newer options, take cooking classes, and sample new recipes, we bake better. We cook better. With mixing bowl in hand, practice does make perfect. Or to paraphrase the wonderful Julia Child, you can learn something from everybody you meet. If you take this attitude, you’ll never grow old, you’ll just be a better baker!
Experienced cooks know a cake is done because they smell the aroma. They can tell a frosting is ready to be spread onto a cake just by looking at how it clings to the wooden spoon. They can recognize the better cocoa, unsalted butter, the best vanilla. No wonder our grandmothers were such skilled bakers. They just had more experience.
Join me as I take you through a new and improved baking process. Preheat your ovens. As my son says, “The Cake Mix Doctor Returns!”
Choosing a Cake Mix
Why are cake mixes so popular? People are comfortable with them, more comfortable than they are measuring flour and other dry ingredients into a bowl. There are just too many variables in a cake made from scratch—little land mines waiting to be detonated. You need to use the right type of flour, sift in the leavening, measure ingredients properly, let the eggs come to room temperature, and on and on. It can be a hassle even for the more accomplished cook. Add a busy schedule or an unexpected phone call or a missing ingredient, and that cake is toast. Cake mixes are successful largely because the variables are removed. They bake, they rise, they turn out of the pan. You just need to make the results interesting, but that’s where I come in.
The shortcomings of cake mixes are their use of artificial coloring and flavoring. Let’s face it, reading the ingredient list is a little like being back in chemistry lab. I have always said a perfect mix would have all-natural ingredients and still turn out moist and light the way current cake mix cakes do. At this writing, I am working on such a mix. Until then, let’s look at what’s on the shelf and select the right cake mix for the recipe.
Plain Cake Mix or Cake Mix with Pudding?
The question I have heard the most often through the years has been “Which brand is plain cake mix and which brand has pudding in it?” Duncan Hines makes plain cake mixes, even though the packages are labeled “moist deluxe.” There are some store brands that are also plain cake mix. Betty Crocker and Pillsbury, on the other hand, put pudding in their cake mixes. If you are in doubt as to just what’s in the box, call the 800 number on the cake mix package and ask.
I find plain cake mix cakes tend to rise higher in the pan. That said, I do like the moist consistency and rich flavor that result from a chocolate cake mix with pudding. So, many times it’s the recipe that dictates the particular type of cake mix I use. And some recipes in this book are very specific in calling for a plain butter recipe golden cake mix—that is cake mix without pudding.
Unfortunately,