Is it tacky to serve box cake at a party

I can't tell the difference. I grew up poor and ate these and still do without complaint.

Depends who your friends are.

It's tackier to make a dry cake without enough pudding in the mix (or moisture in general). Boxes have saved some folks for years.

Not tacky at all. When somebody goes to the trouble of cooking, the response to that effort is or should be thanks.

(The older I become the less I want to cook and, equally, the more gratitude I feel when it’s done for me.)

My mom always made me a boxed cake for my birthday. I don't think it's trashy at all. I'd rather have that than some shitty grocery store cake.

I think it is tacky because they are full of chemicals, artificial flavors and coloring. It’s not so much harder to gather the ingredients to make a cake from scratch and you can leave out the corn syrup.

Isn't it called baking?

The Dolly Parton boxes are great. Sub the oil for butter and milk for water. Look up "box cake hacks" and splash out for real homemade frosting. When people hate boxed cakes, they're usually just hating the jarred frosting

How are people supposed to know it was from a mix unless you tell them? Do you put out the empty box next to the cake?

Anybody who can't taste the difference between a box mix and a made from scratch cake needs to have their taste buds replaced STAT.

The last box mix cake I made (with canned frosting) I ended up throwing out because the whole thing tasted like crap.

I don’t have a problem with a box cake but I’d probably be a little bit of a snob if it had box frosting. And I would know. That stuff just tastes gross. Better to go with unfrosted box brownies.

Call me tacky, but I would prefer a Duncan Hines or Betty Crocker to any other cake, especially if it's yellow cake with chocolate frosting

OP I always use box cakes but I doctor them up. I use one extra egg, I use melted butter instead of oil, I may even add about 4 ounces of cream cheese. Whole milk, not water. I also use instant pudding. I've abandoned layer cakes because they're too much trouble, but I do a great chocolate bundt cake and make a chocolate ganache and sprinkle ground pecans on it and it is delicious.

R9 I wasn’t host. My friend had a little get together, 5 of us total. He prepared delicious ny strip steaks paired with asparagus and mashed potatoes. As we were eating, my friend commented how splendid everything tasted and that the mash potatoes were simply divine. The host replied, well I have a confession to make— I used Idahoan homestyle mix. My other friend looked at me with pause. But what really set him over the edge is when he noticed the Betty Crocker box in the garbage can as we enjoyed our desert. My friend told me in private it was very tacky to serve such high quality entrees with trashy, Walmart sides. I disagreed but my friend said he would never do such a thing.

R14, if everything was good, and you enjoyed your meal, WTF do you care? Tell your friend to go fuck himself.

No. Not everyone is an experienced baker and those are hard to fuck up.

It's fine if you do the standard replacements of ingredients like whole milk or for water, butter for oil (although some oil yields a more moist cake, so you need to get it right), and such.

I grew up eating instant mashed potatoes and margarine. These foods are not my first choice to consume now but I would never complain about being served these foods as a guest.

Shut up and eat.

Unless you love baking, why would you even bake a cake for a party? Espeically a mix. I would go to a bakery and buy a cake.

I wouldn't do it, but I'd also refrain from making anyone who was kind enough to make a cake feel badly. It really is about your conscience in the end, OP. If you have one.

(And, other than for birthdays, who even serves cake these days?)

OP isn’t complaining. He doesn’t think his rude friend’s comments had any merit, but he’s curious how others feel.

If you are working class or grew up working class and have nostalgia for your youth, it's not tacky to serve box cake. Also, what kind of party, and what kind of friends? It's true whatever you serve, your guests should appreciate and not consider tacky.

Besides all that, why should your invitees know anything about the origin of the cake you serve. If asked if you baked it, just say "of course". Then it's not officially tacky.

I don't mind box cakes. I learned to make cakes from scratch before my teens, from my grandmother, so I always made cakes from scratch for any special event such as a party. If someone knows how to make cakes from scratch, they always taste better than any box cake. Always.

Making a standard yellow or chocolate cake from scratch doesn't take much more time or effort than using a box mix. You still have to add several ingredients to a box mix, so the time difference is minimal. You might as well make a cake from scratch.

I recommend making the cake layers in advance and freezing them. Then make the frosting and frost the cake the day of. Making the cake part and frosting, and assembling the cake all in the same day is a big chore. Breaking up the steps makes it so much easier.

I'm surprised the host didn't bother peeling and mashing potatoes. That's the real crime, not the cake.

Sometimes these convenience and industrail foods have good "mouth feel" and they might use flavor inhancers (certainly instant potatos) so they become very savory. So yes they are tasty. But i garantee you will find a flavor and texture difference if you do a direct taste test of instant mashed potatoes vs. home made mashed potatos, and boxed cake vs. cake from scratch (caveat - from a person who knows how to bake a cake from scratch).

It's very true if you are not an experienced baker, a mix might be a safer bet and the result will be pleasing.

There are so many factors to consider when you make a judgement about what is "tacky" so I wouldn't jump the gun and call a host tacky, behind his back, because you don't know whats going on his life and he make the effort to host, and that's already kind.

Please! Please! This Cak Baking thread is TEARING us APART!

Was the champagne burnt?

Not as long as you remove it from the box before you serve it.

no tackier than biscuits!

Mashed potato flakes work for homemade gnocci and aligot, a cheesy mashed potatoes or if you're adding mashed potatoes to another dish like salmon cakes.. If you want real mashed potatoes in 15 minutes, nuke the potatoes and put them through a ricer..

I think it's bad manners to complain about a host's food although not so much on the ride home with another friend.

I classify box cakes with Little Debbies and spam--not healthy. I have sweets infrequently but try to hold out for the best I can afford.

When it comes to breakfast, Dolly Parton has no problem whipping something up for herself and husband Carl Thomas Dean.

“This morning I made breakfast for my husband and me. I made some sausage patties, and I baked some biscuits, and I made some milk gravy,” she shared.

Paleezzze, have the help make one from scratch and allways use duck eggs. Chicken eggs are so middle class.

[quote]I classify box cakes with Little Debbies and spam--not healthy. I have sweets infrequently but try to hold out for the best I can afford.

I think I finally understand what the term prisspot means.

So prisspot means being able to identify and avoid industrial crap "food"?

Yes it’s quite tacky.

OP, unless you grow wheat and vanilla beans in your back yard, have a cow for the butter and milk, some chickens for the eggs, and you get your own baking powder wherever the fuck that comes from, you are a vulgar instant-culture buffoon and we will all spot your cake out half chewed and exclaim “BLECH.”

There, happy now?

^^^ spit

I like to scratch my asshole while baking

Mmmm box cake.

It all depends on the setting. Friends over to catch up and celebrate something casual, enjoy good conversation? Sure. And I’ll have a second slice please. Friends showing off what culinary wizards they are, and trying to impress, and the food is the focal point? That deserves mockery if Duncan Hines is found in the trash.

R26 There aren't flavor enhancers in regular freeze-dried mashed potatoes. I know, I read the ingredients recently when because of a digestive problem, they were one of the few things I could make quickly and that I could tolerate. They're ostly just potatoes and a preservative. And they're very bland.

*mostly

A box cake is better than no cake!

[quote] Sub the oil for butter and milk for water. Look up "box cake hacks" and splash out for real homemade frosting.

Thanks, Betty Crocker. The oil is actually better, sometimes. It makes a moister cake.

As long as it’s tasty I really don’t give a shit!

[quote] OP I always use box cakes but I doctor them up. I use one extra egg, I use melted butter instead of oil, I may even add about 4 ounces of cream cheese. Whole milk, not water.

Why not just use a damn recipe, at this point.

R40 fine for you. But there ARE crappy ingredients in the mix the OP mentioned.

INGREDIENTS: Potatoes, Vegetable Oil (coconut, sunflower, soybean), Maltodextrin, Dried Corn Syrup, Salt, Sugar, Nonfat Dry Milk, Butter (Cream, Salt), Mono- and Diglycerides, Calcium Stearoyl Lactylate, Natural Flavors. Freshness preserved by Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate, Sodium Bisulfite, Citric Acid, and Mixed Tocopherols.

And remember, ingredients are listed by %. The vegetable oils are garbage, DRIED CORN SYRUP, salt, sugar, all before "butter". And what exactly are "natural flavors". They are flavor enhancers.

Kevin Lee Jacobs uses potato flakes to make his mashed potatoes. He said he gets his flakes from a Mennonite store.

R17 Oil and butter can give a totally different texture, so you can't always exchange it. Butter is solid at room temperature which yields some cookies brittle for example, which won't work with oil.

Even coconut oil, which is solid at room temperature, can give a different texture to cakes that use oil. I used it once in a bundt cake and it came out kind of dry.

R44 And if it's shitty, I don't give a taste!

Why the hell would you tell your guests?

R46 When did OP mention mashed potatoes? I thought you did.

Want to make a box mix taste homemade, just add extra eggs.

Box cake?!!

R46 Betty Crocker Mashed Potatoes, total ingredients:

Potatoes (dried), Mono and Diglycerides. Freshness preserved by Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate, Soldium BIsulfite, and Citric Acid.

Box cakes (and brownies) are fine. But I draw the line at instant mashed potatoes, Minute Rice, margarine instead of butter, jelly instead of jam, fake maple syrup, off-brand cola, etc.

A lot of bakeries use boxed cake mix. They just don’t generally follow the instructions on the box.

I’m not arguing that box cake is the height of culinary sophistication, but isn’t it very rigorously tested to appeal to most tastes and to have a consistent result? If it was better with an extra egg or with milk instead of water, wouldn’t those be the instructions?

Butter vs. oil I can understand, as many households didn’t use butter regularly 40 or 50 years ago. But every one had a big jug of corn oil.

R56 Potato boundaries stated!

R58 No they didn't. I think my mom usually had a small bottle of Wesson vegetable oil.

[quote]So prisspot means being able to identify and avoid industrial crap "food"?

Prisspot means someone thinks they're being clever when they're just being a little prisspot themselves. This is why the term never caught on, but this bitch keeps trying to make it happen god knows how many years later.

Butter and oil are not necessarily easily substituted. Oil (and shortening, like Crisco) is 100% fat. Butter is 16-18% water.

If I saw a cake at a party I wouldn't think about if it was from a box, frozen, from scratch, or what. And--who cares?

Friends who care about that shit are not true friends.

I agree with those who believe it's the potatoes not the cake. I was at Costco the other day and was floored by the different types of potato dishes you can buy heat and serve. Potatoes are so easy and fast it boggles the mind. Jeez.

If you're exhausted or not fussy about food, do the best you can. I like to make foods from scratch whenever possible but everyone is different.

[quote]I don’t have a problem with a box cake but I’d probably be a little bit of a snob if it had box frosting

I agree with R11 here. Box cake is fine. Canned frosting can be outright bad. Too sweet, grainy, artificial tasting. Either make your own or splurge for some high end brand of frosting.

My cousin and her husband eat processed everything. If they make spaghetti, they make it with McCormick's spaghetti sauce mix. Beef stew mix. Pot roast mix. Every kind of boxed potato mix. Drink mixes for cocktails. Anything. But they buy good desserts, never make cake from a mix.

R67 that's why I love my Chocolate Ganache. It is so easy to make and so good. All you have to do is use a good quality Chocolate. I think canned frostings are disgusting and gross. Vile.

"natural flavors" is usually code for MSG.

That started that nonsense when MSG was supposed to kill us.

That opinion has been debunked.

I always felt bad after certain meals, as a kid. Everything that made me feel that way had MSG in it.

Only if you've ejaculated into the batter.

If you spend a ton of money on a cake from a bakery, you're eating a boxed cake. They just know how to doctor it up to make it better. I know their tricks too.

A whole new meaning to eating box!

Box cake? You mean like a cake that comes in a box from the bakery? Oh, yes! I adore them, darlin! Never too tacky to eat my box... cake, that is. Ha!

[quote]Box cake is fine. Canned frosting can be outright bad.

Yes. Cake from a mix is OK, but I always make my own frosting.

"Is it tacky to serve box cake at a party?"

Only if you serve it in the box the mix came in.

I was raised blue collar, working class but managed to make it into circles of wealth and privilege as a young adult. Gotta admit, I sort of miss the days when the driving to make a box cake mix would not have come with any second thought. Growing up, it was just a perfectly normal thing that all of our parents did (while also getting cakes from the very good local bakery). No one thought twice about the choice. Certainly no shame.

[quote] jelly instead of jam

Huh? There are some good jellies out there. It's the same as jam, except without the solids.

Shoot me, but I like the Duncan Hines canned chocolate frosting. Granted, I haven't had it since maybe the '90s.

[quote]If they make spaghetti, they make it with McCormick's spaghetti sauce mix.

O Madonn'

Why serve a cake at a party, when you can just jump out of one instead?

I don't see that much wrong with using those McCormick mixes. At least they're cooking. Chili and curry powders are both mixtures of seasonings.

Drink mixes, however, are not great, especially the ones for margaritas (citrus flavors). The pop of fresh citrus can't be captured in the bottle. Never tried Bloody Mary mix, but it's so easy, just V8, horseradish, and Worcestershire.

You can doctor up the box mixes to taste homeade.

When I was little, I always wanted a white cake (box mix), but thought it was too weird / boring to ask for one. With white frosting, of course. Maybe I should just make one for myself, now that I'm a grown-up. I'm guessing you use only the egg whites.

r86 that would be angel food cake. You can make a white box cake with eggs.

R87, I think the Duncan Hines white cake mix calls for egg whites, only.

Here's the Duncan Hines white cake box.

Totally fine. Just sub in good ingredients and frosting as mentioned above. Maybe get whipping cream and whip that shit up in a mixer. Super simple and they will think it's a big deal.

If you use decorative candles, NO ONE will be discussing the box mix!

r88 I stand corrected.

Has anyone mentioned serving it the box?

[quote]It's tackier to make a dry cake without enough pudding in the mix (or moisture in general).

Pudding in cake? I thought that was some long disappeared fad from the 1970s.

One or the other. Not both in one.

Yes, you can still put pudding mix in a cake.

I don't think it's tacky, but I do think it's kind of weird to bake any cake like that for a dinner party. Some box cakes, like gingerbread or spice cake mix, are fine, but yellow cake has a gawdawful chemical smell and taste.

And canned frosting...yuck!

It’s tacky to be a fat whore who eats cake.

The wife of a former co-worker used to be a cake decorator for a famous old family owned bakery in my city. She told me the bakery would receive 4 50 gallon barrels of cake mixes per week. Yellow cake mix, white cake mix, chocolate cake mix, and they would simply mix in whatever they needed to make all the different cakes they sold for $50 and up.

I think most people who use canned frosting aren't savvy enough to know you have to remove it from the can and use a mixer to whip some air into it first. I watched someone try to frost a cake with canned frosting right out of the can. I've never seen such a disaster in my life. The poor cake broke up into huge boulders. When I told her she should have whipped some air into it first she said "what's the use of having to do all that work, I may as well just make my own frosting". I just shook my head. Bless her heart.

There should be a law keeping some people out of any kitchen.

I bake cakes from scratch, with homemade frosting. I’d NEVER take a boxed cake to a gathering. It’s an anathema!

They’re mules in horse’s harness.

R73 Still beats making a cake.

R98 Well it would be hard to make that many cakes from scratch. 200 gallons of cake mix a week. That's a big city bakery.

Some of us go to way smaller bakeries than that. When I do buy a cake at a bakery (which isn't frequently), I go to a small towm, neighborhood one. They're not using cake mix. I know someone who works there.

Any bakery that is using food distributor "cake mix" that is similiar in ingredients to consumer grade grocery store cake mix, is not and never will be a fine bakery, no matter how much they rip customers off for their frankencakes.

Don't you think it's possible these "cake mixes" are somewhere closer to "scratch" ingredients?

Many kinds of cakes simply cannot be concocted faithfully and deliciously with consumer cake mixes. The butter (or fat) and sugar must be creamed, then eggs added to create aeration. Flour is folded in, and not whipped in with an industrial mixer. Etc. This produces the desired texture and crumb.

I think they taste good. Fuck whoever is judging you.

Supermarket bakeries probably use similar to box cakes. If you care to check, go to Sysco Foods and find out what they offer in bulk...

Sysco sells everything. Most midlevel restaurants get deliveries from them

I miss those boxed Bundt cakes, I used to ask for the chocolate with coconut filling one every year for my birthday when I was a kid

OP- TACKY is to say- Boxed Mix.

One should instead say cake made from a mix.

Just order a cake from Goldbelly. Fabulous.

A lot of people are food snobs today. It's laughable to listen to them talk about making their own salad dressing and ice cream. Be glad something as mundane as cake was served. Usually it is some fancy-assed dessert the chef took hours to make with all kinds of special ingredients.

I don’t remember cake mixes just for bundt pans. I think you can just use a regular cake mix. Plus instant pudding.

Problem is that the cake mixes are getting smaller, fewer ounces.

I love the trashy "Better than Sex Cake" and "Pig Pickin Cake", both made with box cake.

There are two versions of the Better than Sex Cake, vanilla and chocolate. I like the vanilla version shown below.

113 responses and NO ONE has mentioned DUMP CAKES?

Paging Sandra Lee!

I think some of you are way too precious. There is not one single thing wrong with cake mix cakes. If you have the time and desire to make a homemade from-scratch concoction, do it and enjoy it. It is not a sign of laziness, low class, or lack of education for people who desire to go the Duncan Hines/Betty Crocker route. Some people choose to use their valuable time on other pursuits.

My Mom made those all the time for my birthday and those of my siblings. When I got older, I used to make for her birthday. I'm going to buy a box the next time I go grocery shopping.

The Dolly Parton mixes look cute

Just add an extra egg, swap milk for the water and butter for the vegetable oil, and add a box of instant pudding powder, and no one will be able to tell your box mix isn't scratch.

I love box cake... can you buy already made pieces of this kind of cake anywhere in NYC? I think the restaurant Commerce used to offer it, yellow with chocolate, for dessert.

Yeah, at any grocery store.

I should have such troubles.

I don't know about tacky but it's low effort. It reminds me a coworker (frau) who brought a box cake to work and others raved about it.

I don't think it's tacky but I had a piece of boxed cake recently and couldn't believe how sweet it is. Don't think I've eaten it since I was a kid, when I used to love boxed cake mix. Same thing with Campbell Soup. I loved it when I was a kid but when I had some recently it was drinking a cup of hot salt water.

Here's what I do. Mix up the box cake and put aside. Then I just sift some flour and baking powder. The same weight of the box cake mix. I just take some sugar and butter and cream it, and then add some eggs. Fold the flour into my butter, sugar egg mix. Alternate with some milk. Mix well to remove lumps. Then pour in the box cake mix you have prepared and put aside. Fold tougher a few times.

The result will be 1/2 better than just box cake mix alone, and tastes 1/2 like a cake made from scratch! Easy peasy. Love the box cake mix for the time it saves.

I can't find Dolly Parton's products in stock.

WHAT THE FUCK, R125?

Some of these "hacks" just sound ridiculous, not "easy peasy."

thus my SATIRE at R125. many of you seem to be autists.

Oh STFU. Considering the previous posts in this thread, it could've been a real recommendation.

Making a cake from scratch is not that hard. American buttercream is brainless as well. You can even cheat a Swiss meringue with some meringue powder. Everything you need to make a cake from scratch is probably in your house. Some tricks. After your cake cools, wrap them in cling film and put them in the refrigerator for at least an hour. Level them and put on a crumb coat and put back in the fridge to cool. It will give you a professional looking cake.

A couple things I always make from scratch are German Chocolate cake. The recipe on the bar of German Chocolate is the one I use. And a buttermilk chocolate cake. Both are to die for. If you use a box cake and you put a couple of drops of Lemon extract or orange extract and then zest some lemon or orange it is delicious.

Yes, this thread fiercely defending box cake mix is a great place to casually drop the technique "crumb coat". 🤪

[quote]I think it is tacky because they are full of chemicals, artificial flavors and coloring.

This warning should certainly be heeded by anyone who's planning to make cake baked from a boxed mix part of their daily diet.

Don't believe that bakeries use cake mixes. Cake flours like Swans Down comes in a box that could be mistaken for a cake mix.

Believe what you want. But bakeries DO use prepared cake mixes for most all their cakes. Their mixes may not come in a box (as I said above, they come in 50 gallon drums), but they're the same mixes that companies put in their boxes.

Another thing they do is coat each cake layer with a simple syrup they make up of water & sugar. This counteracts the usual dryness of box cakes.

I'm sure places like grocery store bakeries do for their food Chernobyls, r13.

R136, rather

[quote]Is it tacky to serve box cake at a party

Only if you leave it in the box.

it’s not hard to believe that bakeries use mixes.

Where I live we used to have great Italian bakeries. The made the most delicious fresh pastries. Far better than what you'd find in Little Italy. The are gone now and what remains are those that serve tasteless cupcakes and tasteless birthday cakes. It's just as well that I'm not eating those wonderful pastries anymore. Even Shoprite cakes are now crap when they used to be not half bad. Again just as well.

This book was a huge deal 25 years ago.

R136 the simple syrup is important when you bulk freeze rounds of layer cakes then thaw and frost them as needed.

Maybe it's a regional thing (lifelong NYC metro area) but referring to cake mix or resulting cake baked from a mix as a box cake sounds weird to me.

that's REALLY tacky

Yeah r144. To me it's a mix cake.

I’m making this for her wake

R137, are grocery store baked goods ever any good?

Speaking of cakes and baking hacks, is it true that most cake served at weddings is just sheet cake (apart from the display cake)?

Sheet cake is not a flavor of cake. It’s just referring to the baking vessel.

In no way did R149 imply that sheet cake is a flavour.

All of the weddings I've been to have had pretty big wedding cakes, they looked big enough to serve all the guests. After the first piece is cut, it's wheeled away to slice up and serve. I don't think there is an extra sheet cake in the kitchen. Though it would make sense to have a smaller fancy cake for display and then serve everyone from a few sheet cakes.

Did any of you take shop class?

R152 sometimes the fancy dispaly cakes for weddings aren't real cakes at all. Maybe a layer or two,, but the real cake is in the kitchen in slices.

For whatever it's worth, ATK recommended King Arthur cake mixes. Baking a cake from scratch is great, but depending on the type of cake and other variables, they can be a bit fickle. Cake mixes are generally foolproof & most people probably couldn't tell the difference.

A high-end NYC restaurant ate half of the beautiful birthday cake that this man made for his friend. Apparently, this happens a lot when you take in a birthday cake to a restaurant for serving. Waiters feel entitled to help themselves to your cake.

This man would definitely not use a boxed cake mix.

[quote] are grocery store baked goods ever any good?

They're passable, if you're not used to better. But frankly, if you're hungry enough anything is good.

Pre-pandemic I frequented a cupcake shop in my town that sold lemon cupcakes filled with lemon curd and a wonderful frosting. The lemon curd was excellent and the cupcakes were filled abundantly, not just a dollop. They were pricey but worth it. The owner, a thirty something guy, would see me coming and have my lemon cupcake already packaged and ready to go by the time I made it in the door and to the counter.

Ran into him at the supermarket one day, he had an entire cart full of BOGO Duncan Hines cake mixes. He looked like a deer caught in the headlights when he saw me. LOL.

He didn't skimp on the lemon curd or frosting but he apparently did skimp on the actual cake. I wouldn't have guessed it was box cake because the high ratio of curd to cake masked it.

Little shop never reopened after the pandemic.

My grocery store has a really good bakery. I'm eating a linzer cookie from there right now. There are three bakeries in my little town and I like the grocery store best.

This thread has become like a celebrity plastic surgery thread. Posters will not believe that their faves have EVER had plastic surgery.

[quote]My friend told me in private it was very tacky to serve such high quality entrees with trashy, Walmart sides. I disagreed but my friend said he would never do such a thing.

I'm the biggest food snob in the world but if I'm invited to someone's home, I let all of that go and enjoy what I'm offered. What is important is being together and having a good time.

Where's Greg when you need him?

R154, that makes sense. Weddings are expensive enough. It makes sense to pay for a nice, classy display cake (which everyone thinks they'll be eating from) and then actually serve those bitches sheet-cake from the Mexican bakery down the road!

Hi Tacky

Let's not tempt fate, R162.

r108 again, this is the bundt cake mix I was talking about that my mom used to make when I was a kid

Not if it's Pepperidge Farm Coconut Cake. The frosting is magnificent.

I bought that Pepperidge Farms coconut cake due to the DL influence. I was disappointed. That frosting was unremarkable. IMO.

More cake baking tips, please!

The box mixes are cloyingly sweet if made as directed and frosted with canned frosting. Cut the sweetness by adding fresh berries and frosting with fresh whipped cream. Enough melted baker's chocolate added to a chocolate cake mix, and it tastes rich and chocolate without the "cotton candy" sweetness of so many of these mixes. By doing all the hacks and amping up the flavor, fresh fruit/berries or more chocolate/coffee really improves it- mostly by toning down the sweetness.

Decorate the cake with more berries, mint leaves, chocolate shavings, ect. And add fresh, edible flowers on top and around the cake-it's a good thing!

[quote]By doing all the hacks and amping up the flavor, fresh fruit/berries or more chocolate/coffee really improves it- mostly by toning down the sweetness.

"Doing all the hacks" also cancels out the whole point of using a boxed cake mix.

If any of your guests complain about your Duncan Hines cake just get old time parenty on them and say "You'll eat it and you'll like it!'

[quote]Decorate the cake with more berries, mint leaves, chocolate shavings, ect. And add fresh, edible flowers on top and around the cake

My goodness, just when I thought we couldn't reach a higher level of gay here on Datalounge, this post shows up.

I miss Greg and I think a lot of people do but they're scared because of the other mean people. He was always nice to me.

I'll trust Muriel with this one. They have data that we don't.

R176 I agree.

[quote] I miss Greg and I think a lot of people do but they're scared because of the other mean people. He was always nice to me.

MARY.

[quote]By doing all the hacks and amping up the flavor, fresh fruit/berries or more chocolate/coffee really improves it- mostly by toning down the sweetness.

If you're so bothered by sweetness, why the hell are you baking a cake?

go to a fucking bakery and buy one

R179. POST OF THE DAY!

I hate twats like this-

"Oh, its TOO rich!!'

"Oh I don't much care for sweets".

Fuckers like that need to drown in the tub.

[quote]Fuckers like that need to drown in the tub.

MARY!

I make the most delightful, upside down pineapple cake. My secret ingredient, well not so secret anymore, is NyQuil™.

People talk a lot about desserts being "too sweet" and it does sound stupid. (Why are you eating a dessert if you don't want something sweet.) A lot of these "too sweet" things are possibly caused by lack of salt. Even desserts need a little bit a salt in them. Without it, you get that flat, sweet taste. That's why salted caramel and kettle corn, etc., taste so good.

r184 There is such thing as being too sweet. Just as there is a such thing as being too salty. You've never had an over seasoned steak or fries that were too salty? Just because it is a desert doesn't mean it shouldn't have balance.

When I think of too sweet, I think of baklava.

Baklava is crazy sweet with all that honey. I think the texture makes up for it, though. I like the texture (crunchy and chewy). You're probably supposed to eat with some really strong coffee.

When I went to an old-fashioned tea house in Japan, they served really strong matcha (unsweetened) plus some really sweet mochi things.

Too sweet is definitely a thing. Some cakes have no flavor other than the sweet. Chocolate cakes that aren't really chocolatey, just sweet. Reminds me of fast food milk shakes. With some, there's barely any difference between vanilla or chocolate, because the stand out flavor is "sweet". The actual flavor is probably expensive, so they cut back on the strawberries or the chocolate, and just add more sugar. But for some people, the sweeter the better. I've never cared for red velvet cake, they say it has chocolate in it, but never enough to tell,, so to me they're always a disappointment. It's just another flavorless "sweet" cake with frosting, no distinctive flavor.

It’s tacky to serve frozen (heated) lasagna and salad with croutons from a bag.

Stouffer’s makes a nice lasagne.

Are there high-end box mixes without the synthetic ingredients?

Has it been mentioned to substitute brewed coffee for half the water in chocolate cake mix? If it calls for one cup of water, do 1/2 cup coffee, 1/2 cup water. I recall doing this years ago and it was good.

Who's going to eat a cake made out of boxes?