hi everyone. I've recently bought a commercial cake mix for a sponge cake. It's amazing and there's no chemical after taste like the ones sold at the supermarket.
Anyways, the recipe it calls for is 1kg of cake mix, and 650g eggs, 250 ml cold water. I have several questions,
(1) It smells and taste like eggs (obviously with that amount of eggs put into the recipe), I've added like 1tbs of vanilla (commercial grade) which didn't help at all. Can I use any other liquid instead of the water? i.e. juice or flavored creamer.
(2) If I wanted to use powdered spices do I have to substitute part of the cake mix?
(3) on the bag it says I must beat the batter on low for 2 minutes then on high for 7. If I to halve the recipe (i.e. use 500g of cake mix and so forth), do I have to halve the time it needs to beat as well?
sorry for being such a noob and thanks for your replies in advance.[/list]
The only question I can try assist with, is guessing you wouldnt have to change the cake mix to accomodate the spices. I'm assuming the spices would be 2-3 tsp, so not enough to change the cake mix itself.
For me, the recipe sounds a bit odd, and too much work to work out lol (im lazy 
) so I'd just go with a scratch recipe. If you're looking for a nice one, I can personally recommend possibly the easiest cake (and my new go-to recipe!) ever: wacky cake!
http://cakecentral.com/recipes/wacky-cake-2/
Seriously easy to make, quick, cheap (no eggs, no butter) and tastes AMAZING!!! The coffee doesnt make the cake taste like coffee, it just enhances the chocolate taste. YUMMY!!
1) Yes you can substitute other liquids for the water.
2) No, you don't have to take out any of the mix for spices that you add.
3) The beating time is the same for any amount of mix, although beating for 7 minutes sounds like a good way to overdevelop the glutens in the flour to me.
I've used a couple of different kinds of commercial mixes and have found no problem in doing any of these things. Sorry I can't help you with the chocolate question - the chocolate ones I've made with these mixes already come with cocoa in them. 650 grams of eggs (about 13 eggs) .sounds like a lot for a kilo of flour, by the way. The mixes I use call for 400 grams (about 8 eggs) per kilo. If you get a chance, you might experiment with reducing the eggs. Do you add any oil or butter to these mixes? You could try swapping out eggs for a little more fat.
The only question I can try assist with, is guessing you wouldnt have to change the cake mix to accomodate the spices. I'm assuming the spices would be 2-3 tsp, so not enough to change the cake mix itself.
For me, the recipe sounds a bit odd, and too much work to work out lol (im lazy
) so I'd just go with a scratch recipe. If you're looking for a nice one, I can personally recommend possibly the easiest cake (and my new go-to recipe!) ever: wacky cake!http://cakecentral.com/recipes/wacky-cake-2/
Seriously easy to make, quick, cheap (no eggs, no butter) and tastes AMAZING!!! The coffee doesnt make the cake taste like coffee, it just enhances the chocolate taste. YUMMY!!
Wow I will definetley try this one out. Does it hold perfectly? I mean can it withstand stacking and carving?
It smells and taste like eggs
Regardless of the amount of eggs, the recipe should be balanced so that the egg is not the flavour. If it smells and taste like eggs, then there is too much egg ..
Can I use any other liquid instead of the water?
Anything you like, as long as result tastes nice..
powdered spices do I have to substitute part of the cake mix
Add whatever spices you like ... it will not affect the mixture ... Find a scratch recipe with a good spice base and use their amounts with the cake mix..
beat the batter on low for 2 minutes then on high for 7.
This is the manufacturer's method whereby the ingredients are combined into the required batter. If you halve the recipe, you are not changing the ingredient ratios, just reducing them. The method stays the same - the cake pan will be smaller and baking time shorter, but that's all the difference
How much cocoa do I need to substitute it for the mix?
You don't: the ingredients are what they are ..
For the amount of cocoa that you would have to substitute or add to the mix to make it "chocolate".
1. it would weaken the structure of the sponge cake as you are reducing the available gluten to construct the cake. And sponges are soft enough without being made to be fragile ..
2. cocoa is very drying - for balance, more liquid would be required.
3. natural cocoa is acidic in nature: to balance this, you would need to add an alkaline item to neutralize it and even out the taste.
Adding a couple [3 max] of tablespoons would not matter. But. In view of the amount of cake mix, a couple of tablespoons wouldn't be enough to flavour it chocolate ..
.
Thank you guys for answering my questions. The cake mix does not require me to add any time pf fat whatsoever, but I definitely would want to reduce the amount of eggs. the problem is I'm not good with figuring out how much to reduce and I dont want to experiment as I hate throwing away food. and that amount of eggs is very high and expensive (I think for 1 kilo I will need about 12-15 eggs) which is like almost half the box of eggs (where I live).
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