I have used two different recipes to make a yellow cake from scratch. They both turned out extremely dry. Luckily, they were for my family. I usually just use a box recipe, but I want to be able to bake a cake from scratch that is not like the desert! Any suggestions? Thanks!

Well I tried to stay away from joining another cakeboard (I have to get work done at some time) but when I saw this I felt bad not replying because I love baking from scratch so alas I have joined .

You can definitely bake from scratch. First and foremost make sure you have a good recipe. I love most of the recipes from Pillsbury Complete Book of Baking - your local library probably has it or go online. www.verybestbaking.com has a great recipe for chewy chocolate brownies.

There are two very important aspects of baking from scratch:
1) make sure you use a liquid measuring cup for milk, oil, etc... and a dry measuring cup for flour, sugar, brown sugar, etc... (when using the dry measuring cups don't scoop it out of the bin - use a spoon to get the flour from the bin to the cup, fill it over the top, don't bang it down to create more room, and then level it off with the back of a knife)
2) when adding the flour do it so it's just barely combined with your mixer and then take your spoonula and mix it by hand for a few seconds to get everything on the bottom combined - if you mix it for too long it will make gluten and your cake will not be good.

Hope that helps!

Hi, I just started making cakes from scratch. It is very easy to over bake a scratch cake. The box cakes forgive you if you over bake 5min or if your oven is too hot. When the wonderful cake aroma fills the kitchen, the cake will be done shortly. The cake will shrink away from the sides of the pan. The toothpick should come out with some crumbs attached.


Hope this helps.

I recommend maybe finding a recipe with pudding in it. I use box cakes but I use a recipe that allows me to add a box of pudding and my cakes are WONDERFULLY moist and always get great comments on how moist they are. Hope this helps.....good luck.

I've tried from scratch... I've always gone back to cake mixes and I just add stuff to them .. I get compliments about how moist and great they taste.. you'd be surprised how adding a cup of sour cream to your box cake mix makes it taste so good .. I absolutely love the CMD book .. it has such great ideas

If it's dry your oven could be to hot or you could be over baking. I would get an oven thermometer, and possibly some bake even cake strips too. Use a toothpick to test if it's done, usually about 5-10 minutes before the recipe states.

You can also use simple syrups to add back moisture.

Thanks for all of your replies. I just got around to reading them because our house was struck by lightning and we just got back online. I will try out these ideas and let you know how it goes. I really want to have a great cake from scratch. Thanks again.

Hi Skylar. Hope you and your family are doing well. Sorry to hear about the lightning crisis! Somone else had said their was a cherry cake from scratch on this web site . If you want to check it out.

Take Care

Before you abandon mixes altogether, try adding a tub of store-bought frosting the the batter. It makes the cake only slightly more dense (which is perfect if you are stacking them) and they are SUPERMOIST. I love it, I won't make a cake mix cake without adding the frosting anymore.