I've been using an extender recipe that I found somewhere? (probably Cake Central) with good results since all of the box mixes got shrunk.

Add to your cake mix:

1/2 c. flour

1/8 c. sugar

1/2 t. baking powder

I often add an extra egg to box mixes to give them more volume.

ci_lantro, I use the very same extender recipe with good results when I bake a cake from a box mix (and sometimes I'll even doctor it based on The Cake Mix Doctor book) --from Cake Central and from one of my cake buddies (it's the same extender)! Sometimes I bake cakes from scratch, and sometimes I use a box mix--it depends on the "audience."

I've never used a Pan De Mie pan (aka Pullman Loaf Pan) so cannot comment on it.

Because I have a couple of 'recipes' that are doctored up cake mix recipes...one is a cherry chocolate cake and the other is a chocolate cake w/ choc chips in it. The latter is DSII's favorite cake and the one he always wants for a birthday cake. And I use a yellow cake mix to make Pineapple Upside Down Cake. I have a good from scratch recipe for PUDCake that I sometimes use, depending on whether or not I have a cake mix that is getting a little long in the tooth.

The reason for using the extender is so the cake comes out the same size it did back before cake mixes got downsized.

Thank-you! I got the needing the extender because they make them for smaller pans now. I get the doctored up recipes, too, now that you tell me. While you could reverse engineer them, why bother if you can just use the called for mix? And the extender to make the recipe right again. Which isn't a bother when you're doctoring, rather than for a dorm kid who just wants to dump it in a pan and get cake. :) I appreciate the insight.

Some of the more popular cake mixes were downsized in 2012. However, home bakers, and professional cake decorators, have been 'extending' cake mixes for many years.

I learned about cake 'extenders' through MBN's publications, about 30 years ago (when I was new to cake decorating), so, of course, I'm sure the practice goes beyond that.

Then back in the 90s, cake mixes were resurrected, so to speak, by the author of 'The Cake Mix Doctor,' whose cookbooks, and line of cake mixes, are being actively hawked on her website today.

Incidentally, her cake mixes weigh 18.25 ounces and eschew the use of vanillin, and other fake stuff; I'll probably never try them, or any other mixes on the market, for that matter -- blame it on sensitive taste buds.

Regardless, I won't repudiate her product. Sister has built a successful business, and I'm all for that ☺

Sol

Buy another box mix and use that for the extender. Weigh the contents to determine how much you have, and then add 1/2 or 1/4 of that weight into the bowl with the same proportion of liquid. You'll have some left over from the box, but you can store that in the freezer and bring it out the next time you need an extender.

When I started using my Pan de Mie pan for bread, I had to increase my bread recipe by about 1/4, but I can't say whether that proportion would work for a cake.

I got criticized as a child for making a cake from a box mix, and so I've not used them since I was 10.

I wonder why I am not receiving all these messages. Only this most recent was received.

I guess I am into experimenting. If I use a box mix then I have constants and the additions are the variables. It is more of understand what increases the height rather than actually having a cake.

Sometimes I am asked what I am cooking and I never answer in case it doesn't work out. I can always rename it as if I intended that result.

Once I experimented with my rice cooker and a chocolate molten volcano cake recipe. I could not get the cake out of the pan. It was all in gooey pieces at best. I renamed it to Scrambled Chocolate Cake and everyone loved it.

There are a whole lot of variables about notifications. You can customize them in your dashboard. Make sure to read each one to make sure you have them all the way you want them.

I will have to check again. I tried before but did not seem to resolve it. Right now, I see that I have responses if I click on Notifications bell at the top.