I don't know about cake mixes, but a dry cake is often an indication that it was baked too hot. Have you changed ovens, pans, modes or anything?

If someone doesn't have a more definitive answer for you, I'd say to try baking it at a lower temperature, perhaps for a little longer if necessary.

I can't help you on cake mixes either, I've always thought they were vile and wouldn't eat them. They have that fake and vaguely "chemical" taste, and I don't care for that. However, my youngest daughter always liked cake mix cakes better than the ones I made from scratch, she said they were a different texture. I agreed, but not in a good way, LOL. Now, however, I've gotten her to use the chocolate cake recipe on the back of the Hershey's cocoa box, she says the cake mix cakes are not the same. In addition, they used to be 18 ounces, now they are 15.something, and so a couple of recipes she had that took a box of cake mix don't come out right.

I agree with plllog, an overbaked cake will be dry, whether mix or from scratch.

Annie

Thanks - really just interested in those who see a difference in cake mixes today. I know all about any baked goods drying out if baked too hot or too long. It isn't that problem. They are different than they used to be and I just wonder what they did to the mixes.

Hmmmm. Well, if I'm going to go through all of that, why don't I just bake a cake from scratch? I thought the big deal with cake mixes was that they were fast and easy and only used a few ingredients. Or am I missing something? I have flour, sugar, eggs, oil, baking powder, maybe buttermilk/pudding/fruit juice. That's a cake. So the mix is only for "flavor"? Now I'm just confused...

Annie

Most of the people I know who bake cakes a lot usually say that scratch results are sometimes-to-often inconsistent. Of course, YMMV.

Box mixes were designed for consistency and for baking errors (i.e. you didn't have enough eggs so you only use one, you forgot to add the oil, you wanted to use soda pop instead of oil or water, for example), and included some ingredients not available to the home baker unless they wanted to order in huge quantities. Yes, box mixes also includes "chemical" stuff and such for shelf life preservation etc.

Many people prefer the taste of box mixes over scratch because that's what they grew up with, or are familiar with, or whatever. Some folks, when they taste a doctored cake, their palate will often think "Wow! This is so delicious that it must be from scratch!"

At a taste test one of my cyberpals had for canned versus homemade (buttercream) frosting (not recipes with Crisco), the canned frosting was overwhelmingly preferred. Go figure.

For moistness in cakes, some folks add applesauce, sour cream, even mayonnaise in place of the oil or liquids called for, but they don't use more than ONE of these items per recipe batch--because it will make the cake toooooo dense and moist!

Bottom line is to do what works for you, and when in doubt, be sure you have ice cream to serve with it, just in case! :O)

Smiles,

Sooz

Well, so much for my theory of just make a delicious frosting/filling and the cake will be mostly overlooked. I don't think I've ever actually voluntarily eaten canned frosting, although I did try one of those boxed mixes a long time ago. Do they even still have that?

Annie.

A friend, who makes delicious wedding cakes for a living, suggests to brush simple syrup on the warm layers before frosting. It really does make a cake more moist.

Scratch baking isn't inconsistent when done by the same baker with the same ingredients, tools and oven. When someone who really doesn't know how to bake well has inconsistent results it's usually because the ingredients weren't handled correctly or measured properly, and the baker doesn't know the oven well enough to know the correct settings for that particular oven.

I don't get the mix "doctoring" part if it's more than throw in a few raspberries or a box of pudding mix. The basics, the flour, sugar and baking powder, are the easy part! At least once you've mastered measuring.

ryseryse_2004, I read once that cake mixes require the addition of milk and eggs so that the person making it will feel like it's really baking rather than magic box factory stuff. I haven't made a mix since I was old enough to measure, however, so this is just a guess: There have been a lot of changes in how fats are handled for factory made foods. It'll be the fats that create the "chemical" taste that Annie mentioned, and which are most likely to vary. They're also the first things to get rancid and therefore are what most require stabilizers and preservatives, which also have gone through changes. That may very well be your difference. They'll also have an effect on texture, and potentially even dryness.

Annie and Maddielee bring up a good point. Plain old frosted cake is kind of out of style. It could be they're engineering the cake mixes to be dryer than they used to be in order to stand up to the very wet fillings, soaks, ganaches, cremes and toppings that are so in.

Thanks all. Guess I'll go back to doing it like I did in the 50's before Dunkin Hines came out with their 'perfect' mix. It certainly was 'perfect' then, but no more. I know people still buy up the mixes or else stores wouldn't devote an entire shelf in their stores to them!

Could it be that the mixes used to use hydrogenated oil and now don't? Maybe the hydrogenated oils helped make the cake mixes stay moist. Just a guess.

Sally

I hardly ever bake cakes because I can't eat them up fast enough, they mold on me and my freezer is usually too full to put any away. So I keep a cake mix (or two) around in case I need a cake . . . fast! I do think the quality has gone down, but they can be "doctored" and sometimes the results are pretty good. I made Pioneer Woman's "Pig Pickin'" cake for a staff function and I got so many raves. And I was in competition with a "from scratch" baker who made fabulous cakes for everyone's birthday. I fully intended to make the cake from scratch but in the end I didn't have time. Another cake I had pretty good results with was Hummingbird Cake using a mix. Here are the links: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/pig-cake/

and Hummingbird cupcakes
The next one I want to try is an Almond Joy cake, with some coconut milk I have languishing in the pantry. That one sounds like a diabetic's worst nightmare. Almond Joy Cake

If I use a box mix, I look for recipes using the box but that add pudding or sour cream or something else that will make it richer and moister.

I baked cupcakes yesterday morning using a Betty Crocker Cherry Chip mix. It was very moist and tender and the family really liked them. This one was 15.25 ounces. I put homemade cream cheese icing on them and slivered almonds. I do have some Duncan Hines mixes that are 18 ounces. I baked my cupcakes for 14 minutes. For a 9 x 13 cake mix I usually bake them between 20 and 25 minutes at the most. They continue to bake some after coming out of the oven. I think maybe her cake was baked a bit too long. No milk or pudding was in this mix. It was and is still very good and moist.

Sue

My mother-in-law used to love Dunkin Hines. She did a lot of baking, and that was the mix of her choice because she believed they were the most moist. I'm sorry she's gone, but if she were still here and baking, I imagine she'd be mighty disappointed at the size change and the lower quality. She'd probably love that cake doctor book that was mentioned, as she had fun doctoring the boxes, also.

Sally

I remember when Dunkin Hines came out with their cake mix. Yes, I am that old. It was excellent and many cooks back then stopped making cakes from scratch. No longer an excellent product.

Another option: brush the cake with simple syrup before frosting. This is a trick I learned from one of my chef instructors who used to be a pastry chef at Disney World.

I have a friend that replaces the water in a cake mix with white wine. It is moist and has wonderful flavor.