I was wondering how many of you that have shops, do scratch? Or do you doctor a mix or just use a mix? If you use a mix can you get them in bulk. I currently work out of my home and doctor mixes. Just wondering when I get a shop how easy this will be? Thanks.

Your choices for bulk mixes are very slim. I worked for a caterer and she liked Duncan Hines, so she bought them in cases from the grocery store & Wal-Mart and stacked them to the ceiling. Even though we were baking 40+ cakes at a time, we still had to open one cake mix box at a time.

There are many people on both sides, scratch and mix. I personally use both, some sheet cakes are doctored mixes, but all my specialty cakes are my own recipes that I have developed over 40 years of baking.

Tami

Hi, if you will google, (scratch cakes or box cakes on cake central,) you will find lots of threads on this. you will also see some heated discussions on this topic. hth

I also Googled "wholesale cake mix" and got lots of sites, including Cake Central threads.

Thanks I will do some more looking, searched that in forums and got a lot of unrelated too, so I will be digging a while. lol.
I googled buying DH by the case but it's actually cheaper per box at walmart or something. I have been tempted to try out some homemade recipes. I spent so many years just wanting to get the techniques down and just used DH then I started Dr. them and now I am kind of hooked on that.

There was a thread not too long ago by someone who got bulk samples from Pillsbury. She called up and asked for samples and they sent her 2 50lb bags! I'll see if I can find the thread.... but if I remember correctly, Pillsbury was one of the few that offered bulk mixes.

Here's the link to the Pillsbury thread:
http://cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-719418-free.html+samples+pillsbury

I used to only use doctored box mixes, but since I am venturing out into selling my cakes, I am trying scratch recipes. So far I've had some luck with them, and my family likes them MUCH better than the doctored boxes.

The name of my new soon-to-be-open is From Scratch Cakery. I think that says it all.

FromScratchSF said it all in her blog... if they don't state it clearly... it is not scratch.

Great name Linda.

My front page headlines...100% Scratch Every Day.

Hi,
I only bake from scratch and its says it on my website as well. I big the big sacks of sugar and flour. Some find it harder to bake from scratch, not me when I first started out I used to be doctored cake mix person but the time I spent doctoring the mix up, I could have just made it from scratch. I make my fondant from scratch as well, marshmallow fondant. The only time I don't use marshmallow fondant is making figures and some decorative items that need to be hard like shoes and all white wedding cakes just because they look better. I tell all of my clients this up front that I bake from scratch and reason why.. a higher quality cake.

For those of you who do only scratch cakes...

That has been my aim as well. The saying is "never say never," but I RARELY use premade stuff in my family's cooking, so my goal has been to do this in my cakes as well. I am particularly struggling with a white or "plain vanilla" recipe that is yummy and doesn't taste dry. After seeing so many CC'ers raving about the WASC recipes, I have tried a couple, but I'm still not impressed. To me they taste like sweet cornbread. Do you guys have any recommendations? Thanks!

You can always beef up the flavoring the cakes. I found a scratch vanilla recipe online (can't remember where now) and I didn't like the fact that they only use 2 teaspoons of vanilla so I changed it. If someone orders vanilla I want them to taste the vanilla in the cake. My vanilla cake is the basis for almost 90% of my other flavors. There are others ways to add more flavor in your cakes like puddings, creamers and my fav sour cream. It also makes the cake more moist and not as dense.

Right now I do both...however I am wanting to go all scratch...(not on fondant yet) My only drawback is I don't cook at home anymore...& it is really hard to go rent the kitchen just to try out a recipe that may or may not turn out well. I'm trying to find a way around it. So I definitely understands both sides of scratch vs box/doctored..

The reason I said not fondant yet...because I'm literally afraid to make fondant from scratch. the though terrifies me...although I see some that make it & it comes out perfect... I'm gonna get the cakes all to scratch then try the fondant

sangriacupcake--

thank you for posting that blog! I actually wanted to participate in that cook-off, but was unable to at the time and lost track of the thread on CC. Now I have somewhere to go with it. I've tried two different white cake recipes from scratch and they were both awful, so here's hoping I find a good one!

Sangria, I use Fondarific. I hate making fondant. I have an ingredient page in my about us area. I list gourmet jams, organic honey, local farm dairy products, fine chocolates, and top shelf liqueur. The ingredients I use are the best I can get. I consider the fondant in the category of fine ingredients. I don't name my fondant on that page because I don't want my competitors to know the brand, but I state that I buy it.

Sangriacupcake, I don't know if you've tried this one.

Ron Ben Israel blog (written by his Operations Manager). She started the blog not too long ago.

It only called my attention because I make a vanilla buttermilk cake from Sky High that uses reverse creaming, and someone pointed out to me that RBI white cake was the exact thing as that other cake except that replaces milk for the buttermilk and only whites instead of the whole eggs the other recipe has.

Do let me know if you try it and if you like it? I was going to try it this weekend, but I ran out of time.

Nice blog to read anyway.

http://nyccakegirl.wordpress.com/2011/06/03/today-ron-has-allowed-me-to-share-a-few-recipes/

http://nyccakegirl.wordpress.com/

I make all of my cakes from scratch and my fondant as well. I used michelle foster's fondant and I use the white chocolate variation. I noticed that when people say white cake they are really thinking vanilla cake, I ask the customers for clarification. So like fromscratch said I call it vanilla cake and the other I call it an almond cake. Honestly I use the same recipe and swap out the flavorings. I got the idea from leah_s.

Thanks for all these tips guys!! We'll see what kind of experimenting trouble I can get into this week!!