I am a firm believer in doing what works for you. If doing only a box with no doctoring works, great. If WASC is your go to recipe, fantastic. If you are only a scratch baker, more power to ya.I think so much also depends on your oven, your altitude, your mixer,your experience, how much coffe you haven't had, how much wine you have had! Experience, practice and lots of tasting are the best factors!

Has anyone had luck buying cake mix in bulk? Like Honeyville or Sysco?
Thanks!

Sysco and GFS do not carry the 18oz cake mixes that we find in the grocery store. GFS has the 5lb boxes of cake mix (which suck!). Or you can get the 50-lb bags.

IndyDeb, you still use the 18oz boxes with all the cakes you make? Hope you're saving your Box Tops! haha! Thanks for the info!

For you ladies that like BC, I saw a bulk pack of like 6 or 8 flavors the last time I was at BJ's. Thanks, Joybeth, for explaining about the RV mix.

I can't figure out the mixes myself. I love the WASC for the white cake, but I've tried other cake doctoring recipes on other flavors and they all taste box-y. On all three brands. But, the white cake imho tastes like a scratch cake. I think I will just stick with white cake and my Bacardi Rum Cake, which uses DH recipe yellow. I think everyone knows how to make that old recipe.

has anyone tried the R&H (Dawn Foods) chocolate cake mix at all? I was hoping for some thoughts:
-does it taste like a generic boxed mix
-would you modify it (add sour cream or chocolate pudding) since the mix itself only calls for water.

TIA to anyone that can provide me some insight. I am a scratch baker and was thinking of testing it out, but it's a pretty hefty commitment if it doesn't taste very good.

"So do I understand correctly that an extra egg (which I would have thought added moisture) would make a sturdier more dense/carvable cake??!?!?!?!!"

Egg yolks add structure bc of the proteins, so it is my understanding that additional yolks will strengthen a cake and the emulsifiers in egg yolks will help create a better crumb/texture. Egg whites are drying, so you don't want to add too many or it will dry out the cake.

I'm a DH baker. I add an extra egg and pudding to the mix. For vanilla, I used to use their yellow mix, but have since changed to using the white mix, with vanilla pudding, additional vanilla extract, and i like it much better. For carved cakes, I stick with WASC for a denser easier to carve cake.

I add 1 envelope of Dream Whip and one box of Cook-n-Serve pudding to each cake mix; I prefer Betty Crocker mixes. If you are making a white cake, the instant white chocolate pudding works and tastes great. I had a photographer that had been doing weddings for 20+ years tell me it was the best wedding cake she'd ever tried!

If you ever want to find out what eggs in a mix do, trying "forgetting" to put them in.

I was making 2 cakes on a very hectic day I was having and I don't have a clue for the life of me how I missed putting the eggs into my 2nd cake...but I did! When I turned the cake out of the pan, which I noticed had a very much lighter look to it, (should have been my first clue) the whole cake just crumbled into a pile of crumbs in my hand!

Now, especially on those sometimes very hectic days, I double check that I have added every ingredient properly, more so if I'm doctoring a mix or halving or doubling a mix...LIVE AND LEARN!

Is it possible to get a box cake the same density as a scratch cake? I mean dense enough to carve it. Sort of like a pound cake. Would adding extra egg yolks help? I want to be able to 3d carved cakes but my cake isn't study enough to be doing what customers want, which is what they see on tv.

Duncan Hines has the best density for carving cakes.... I specialize in 3D cakes and building them.
I have NEVER had a problem yet.

Indydebi - Do you do something different if you want a cake as white as possible? Add an extra egg and leave out the yolks? Use a specific type of cake mix?

I usually add "extra white" wilton food coloring to a white cake mix and it seems to have worked for me....

I really have found a lot of this information helpful....thanks to everyone for sharing. I seem to have a harder time with my chocolate cakes over my white/vanilla cakes, and I have had a hard time figuring it out. I am definitely going to try some of these suggestions to try and per-fect my recipe!

So indydebi, you use this recipe for your stacked cakes as well? and they hold up? wonder if I could add an extra egg, Dream Whip and a package of dry pudding mix?