I LOVE the DH butter recipe yellow cake mix, but I want to make all my cakes from scratch. Anyone have a recipe that tastes as good as this boxed mix? It has wonderful flavor and is soooo moist!

Hopefully you dont mind my asking but if you like the taste of DH box mix, why on earth would you want something that tastes the exact same but from scratch??

There is nothing wrong with mix bakers despite what you may have heard, in fact there are a LOT of CC-ers on here that bake from mixes instead of scratch. A lot of people this day and age were raised on box mixes, and wouldnt know a good scratch cake if it bit them in the butt. If it tastes good, and you like it, then stick with it!

You can try the cake extender recipe (in the recipe section, which is what I use) to add to your box mix. It gives you a slightly finer crumb, but is still moist like a box mix.

You can also check out the Cake Mix Doctor Books, that start with mixes but you can get tons of different flavors by adding different ingredients.

I agree, if you like the flavour, don't be ashamed to use box mixes. Most scratch bakers do so because they like it to be different to the box mix.

So using the extender wont affect the taste?

I recently did a taste test between a Bruno's bakery (local supermarket) and the Vanilla Butter Cake Mermaid Bakery recipe on this website and the results were excellent.

The Mermaid Bakery recipe gives you the same moistness, light and tender texture that a box cake gives and without the chemically aftertaste.

Try it, I think it's exactly what you are looking for.

cakeymom

This is Cakeman Raven's red velvet recipe minus the food coloring and cocoa powder. I changed it slightly by adding the baking powder. It has the lightness similar to Duncan Hines without the chemical/preservative aftertaste, it's incredibly moist due to the oil and buttermilk, it's delish..everyone loves it and i have been using it a long time.
Yellow Cake
Preheat oven to 350
2 1/2 cups cake flour
1 teaspoon table salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 c sugar
2 large eggs
1 cup buttermilk (well shaken)
1 1/2 c. good quality canola or veg. oil
1 teaspoon vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla
Mix the above together well for a couple minutes. Pour in greased and floured pans and bake until toothpick comes out clean..

Hope you can try it, it reminds me very much of scratch version of Duncan Hines...I can tell you I'm an all scratch baker but it took me years to perfect my scratch recipes especially the yellow cake is so hard to find a scratch cake that is not dry! Let me know if you try it! I also came upon the best buttercream recipe on another site, I've been doing cakes 15 years and this traditional bc is awesome...it uses corn starch and powdered milk...it's so creamy and not too sweet...let me know if anyone wants the recipe.

You can add a 1 oz bottle of no taste red food dye and 2 sifted teaspoons of cocoa powder and take out the baking powder for cakeman raven's excellent red velvet

tiffraine I'm going to try that. Thanks for the tip. I'm always on the hunt for a better recipe.

One question: Do I still add the 1tsp Vinegar and Baking Soda?????

cakeymom

cakeymom-

for the modified yellow cake or the red velvet:
add 1 teaspoon white vinegar

it's so good. I just made some today for cupcakes for my daughter's school, when you use it for cupcakes you don't even need to spray the paper liners because of the oil in the recipe as long as you wait until they are cool to peel of course.

cakeymom-

Sorry! I hope this is less confusing:

I made the recipesCakeman Raven's(famous NY baker) Red Velvet
Preheat oven to 350
2 1/2 cups cake flour
1 teaspoon table salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 c sugar
2 large eggs
1 cup buttermilk (well shaken)
1 1/2 c. good quality canola or veg. oil
1 teaspoon vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 oz no taste red food dye
2 teaspoons sifted good quality cocoa powder like hershey's dark
Mix the above together well for a couple minutes. Pour in greased and floured pans and bake until toothpick comes out clean..

Cakeman Raven's Red Velvet I modified into a yellow and lighter cake:
Yellow Cake
Preheat oven to 350
2 1/2 cups cake flour
1 teaspoon table salt
Make sure to use both:
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 c sugar
2 large eggs
1 cup buttermilk (well shaken)
1 1/2 c. good quality canola or veg. oil
1 teaspoon vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla
Mix the above together well for a couple minutes. Pour in greased and floured pans and bake until toothpick comes out clean..

tiffraine thanks for sharing your modified recipe. I would love your butter cream recipe that's not too sweet

lovelytee-

This recipe came from a lady named "sewsweet" I got on another web site just the other day. I haven't used a traditional Am. bc in years because I find them too sweet but have had some customers who really wanted it. I was only offering Ital. meringue bc until now because it's light and not too sweet but a lot of people have a nostalgic sweet tooth so I was so glad I came upon this. I couldn't stop eating it out of the bowl.

I've never used crisco in bc because I find it greasy and slimy going down however the cornstarch seems to bind it and there is none of that sliminess, it's amazing...now I don't have to buy high ratio shortening far away for the smoothness anymore, I can just go to BJ's/Sam's club and get Crisco in the 6 lb containers,,,,yay!

Cream in large bowl until a little fluffy:
2 cups shortening(must be Crisco) or I like to use 1/2 unsalted butter and half Crisco

Dissolve in another small bowl with whisk:
1 teaspoon salt, 2/3 c. powdered milk and add enough water to make it to the 1 cup line

Add powdered milk/water mixture to the Crisco.

Then mix in 4 lbs sifted conf. sugar(must be good quality like dominoes)

Then mix in 3/4 cup cornstarch and 2 teaspoons pure vanilla or clear vanilla

Add any additional flavorings you like.

Beat for 15 min with standup mixer. It crusts very well.

It's going to be very thick after thoroughly mixed, it's very good for making roses. Add a little water at a time to thin it to consistency of your liking for icing a cake. I'm thinking about trying real powdered cream for extra creaminess but it's excellent as is. My daughter and I used it today to decorated the my modified yellow cake recipe. Hope you can try it!

I have an awesome carrot cake recipe starting with a french vanilla BC mix. I dont like the dehydrated carrots that are in the carrot cake box mixes either, but this carrot cake is the shiznit, if I do say so myself. PM me if you would like the recipe.

I'll def try it, thanks! Except......do I have to use cake flour? What's the diff?

I made this using the extender recipe(flour, sugar, sour cream, etc), and it def didnt taste as good. Wasnt as moist either. I liked that it made 3 pans instead of 2 though! lol Anyone have a different extender recipe that wont affect the taste as much?

I don't think most scratch bakers really do "extenders" as such. If you want more batter than a recipe calls for, you would typically just double the recipe, or 1 1/2 times it or whatever. Going with an "extender" may have put your ratio of ingredients out of whack. That's just my thought on it, someone else may have another idea.
Sorry it didn't work out.