Several ago I was asked to bring 2 bundt cakes to a church dinner. My friend was also bringing 2 and he made them from scratch. I made mine with cake and pudding mixes and at the end of the evening mine were all gone and his weren't.
It's never been snobbery for me, I promise. It's been that I came originally from a working-class city in Scotland (Dundee) where home baking was much less common than buying from bakeries, and those bakeries were modeled on the finest French patisseries, and yet affordable. I give you Fisher and Donaldson as an example. English bakeries and home baking turned out to be terrible in the 70s (wartime and postwar food rationing likely hadn't helped). American baked goods, bought or homemade, always tasted weird to me: Vanillin didn't help, or all the additives. So my question is what can I substitute for pudding mix? The secret has to be cornstarch, I'm guessing.
Btw, I already pay more for eggs, getting pastured (genuinely free-range) eggs from a local farmer. They're not pretentious or designer, just real eggs, with bright orange yolks. It's just a very different perspective to be from outside the US.
And yes, when some male chef uses pudding mix, he gets praise, while a mother trying to get meals on the table does not, and that's spectacularly wrong. It's called discrimination. I'd rather bake your chocolate pistachio cake, honestly, than get ripped off by "chefs".
Best use for instant pudding - Hornet’s Nest Cake from your 1st Cake Mix Dr book a recipe from your friend in Nashville, as I recall. I went to store w/o a shopping list to buy ingredients to try for 1st time for work function & thought I remembered ingredients, but instead of getting yellow mix, I got Butter Recipe Golden mix & instead of vanilla pudding mix, got French vanilla pudding mix, but used these in the recipe anyway as it was too late at that point to return to the store. I baked it the next morning & it was consumed so quickly at the office, there were only crumbs in the pan when I stopped in the kitchen later to try it & it was the same every time I took it in - I would walk in through lobby to get on the elevator & a line of people would follow me into the elevator up to the kitchen to get a piece, so I have just continued to make it with the Butter Recipe and French Vanilla mixes. It is now my quick go-to cake when someone needs something quickly - for a coffee at church, to take to a grieving family, and as a housewarming gift in a pretty baking “keep it” pan as a gift. I find it best the day it is made, but have frozen pieces individually & warmed back up at reduced power in Microwave & enjoyed as a quick serving or two for a family week night meal dessert.
I have to say I feel torn on this topic. On the one hand, unlike you, Anne, I *did grow up eating pudding mixes, in a family of six with only one parent's income. So there's some nostalgia for me, and if the convenience works for you, why not take it?
On the other hand, I just finished reading one of Joel Salatin's books, and now I'm reading Omnivore's Dilemma, and both authors make clear that this kind of processed food is part of a system that bankrupts our environment and directly ties to our alarming obesity rates. As someone who can no longer even eat this kind of stuff without bad consequences (maybe even due to my childhood legacy diet), I can't go there myself now, and I wouldn't encourage anyone else to do so.
That said, I wouldn't judge anyone's choice, especially right now when budget and time convenience are paramount. And wow, does that cake in your photos look divine!
I make mini Bacardi rum cakes as Christmas gifts for my coworkers. One year I found a scratch recipe & made that instead of the cake mix version. It wasn’t that much (or any) better, and it wasn’t as quick & easy. Next year I went back to the cake mix version.
My mom took Wilton cake decorating at JC Penney's. She bought her cake decorating supplies from a local place nearby. The cake decorating place recommended box cake mixes and claimed many bakeries used bulk cake mixes. Truth or fiction, I'll never know for sure. But my mom made a lot of money with her cottage business of decorated cakes using box cake mixes. Betty Crocker was her mix of choice.
And, that's why I hate yellow cake. I'll eat any box cake mix other than yellow. She also used shortening and that fake vanilla for icing, and it was whiter than buttercream as a result. Back then, that was the Wilton way. I hate that icing.
I do remember a friend taking decorating lessons in the 90s, and I think Krusteaz was the cake mix being touted at the time.
I bake from scratch and from mixes. Wacky cake is a great egg-free cake to make.
Your pistachio cake sounds amazing--I do remember the Watergate cake at potlucks.
Re: my comment on the Hornet’s Nest Cake, I meant to mention that I do find it important to always use whole milk, as opposed to 2% or fat free, since this recipe has no eggs or oil in it.
Love all the cake mix Dr books/ res pies & the chocolate cake mix Dr etc. my baked from scratch SIL loves to eat them... she never knew it was a mix and was amazed at how good they were. Lol.
Still my go to and love the watergate cake, and the butter scotch poppyseed cake w/ a cup of sherry!!!
The (only) cake I make that’s uniformly loved by friends is a recipe from our neighbor from the 1960s. Pearl B.’s chocolate chocolate chip sour cream Bundt cake called for a box of instant chocolate pudding. It’s a perfect, moist cake every time. And my friend from Mobile makes wonderful caramel cakes--cake from mix, and frosting from scratch. I’m still working hard to perfect the frosting! A former secretary shared her most secret recipe for a rum Bundt cake that would make you swoon. One of the secrets? Instant vanilla pudding. Can’t argue with success.
Thanks for this Ann. I was going to make that NYT pistachio cake ($13!?) for a friend who’s mad about anything pistachio, but yours looks yummier. Also wanted to say I borrowed your American Cookie book from the library and after trying 3 recipes I decided to buy the book! The Cake Mix Doctor book gave me the confidence to start baking all those years ago and was thrilled to be asked to bring a cake to gatherings. I freely admitted to people that it had started with a mix and no-one ever turned down a slice!
Anne, I'm curious to know if you've tried any British cake mixes or pudding mixes, because pretty much the baseline is if something was made with one it will be terrible here, but I know so many bakers I trust in America like you like using them!
I have to admit I don’t think I’ve ever made a cake using a pudding mix, but I’m intrigued. My mother was a from scratch baker and proud of it. Maybe suffering through the war in Great Britain with shortages made her eager to use all that flour, butter, sugar and eggs without restrictions. But a good cake is a good cake--and this one sounds terrific. As they say, the proof is in the pudding (or the cake!).
Oh, god, I'm a hopeless purist. Having said that, I'm also getting older...just like all of us. So, I want to thank you for challenging me to attempt this and for introducing me to the syrup, Morin. Can't wait to see if I can toss overboard my tired old ethics and try the cake!!
I consider myself a great “scratch” baker but I agree, cakes made with pudding mix or jello are delicious! I make a lemon cake using a boxed lemon cake mix and lemon jello. It is the perfect lemon cake with lemon glaze and everyone loves it!! My luscious Triple Chocolate cake with chocolate glaze also uses a boxed devils food cake mix and chocolate pudding mix. I have been accused of also adding cocaine to it because it is that addictive!! When I use this same recipe for cupcakes my go-to chocolate icing recipe is from Cake Mix Dr. Returns, page 478 and they are to die for!! I have made many cakes from your two Cake Mix Dr books and all have been happily eaten up and been given rave reviews!
Bake what makes you and those you love happy and if “the proof is in the pudding” then so be it! ❤️
Your email came in at 7 am, but I just read it because I was busy making creme patissiere from Jello
Cook and Serve vanilla pudding. It's going in the middle of a Boston Cream birthday cake that I made from a "Doctored up" box of cake mix. I'll freeze the leftover egg whites for a future project.
Last summer, I baked the good old Watergate cake for a family reunion. I used Cool Whip and a second box of pistachio pudding for the frosting (not at all from scratch). The oldsters remembered it fondly and the little ones couldn't get enough. Good times!
Several ago I was asked to bring 2 bundt cakes to a church dinner. My friend was also bringing 2 and he made them from scratch. I made mine with cake and pudding mixes and at the end of the evening mine were all gone and his weren't.
It's never been snobbery for me, I promise. It's been that I came originally from a working-class city in Scotland (Dundee) where home baking was much less common than buying from bakeries, and those bakeries were modeled on the finest French patisseries, and yet affordable. I give you Fisher and Donaldson as an example. English bakeries and home baking turned out to be terrible in the 70s (wartime and postwar food rationing likely hadn't helped). American baked goods, bought or homemade, always tasted weird to me: Vanillin didn't help, or all the additives. So my question is what can I substitute for pudding mix? The secret has to be cornstarch, I'm guessing.
Btw, I already pay more for eggs, getting pastured (genuinely free-range) eggs from a local farmer. They're not pretentious or designer, just real eggs, with bright orange yolks. It's just a very different perspective to be from outside the US.
And yes, when some male chef uses pudding mix, he gets praise, while a mother trying to get meals on the table does not, and that's spectacularly wrong. It's called discrimination. I'd rather bake your chocolate pistachio cake, honestly, than get ripped off by "chefs".
Best use for instant pudding - Hornet’s Nest Cake from your 1st Cake Mix Dr book a recipe from your friend in Nashville, as I recall. I went to store w/o a shopping list to buy ingredients to try for 1st time for work function & thought I remembered ingredients, but instead of getting yellow mix, I got Butter Recipe Golden mix & instead of vanilla pudding mix, got French vanilla pudding mix, but used these in the recipe anyway as it was too late at that point to return to the store. I baked it the next morning & it was consumed so quickly at the office, there were only crumbs in the pan when I stopped in the kitchen later to try it & it was the same every time I took it in - I would walk in through lobby to get on the elevator & a line of people would follow me into the elevator up to the kitchen to get a piece, so I have just continued to make it with the Butter Recipe and French Vanilla mixes. It is now my quick go-to cake when someone needs something quickly - for a coffee at church, to take to a grieving family, and as a housewarming gift in a pretty baking “keep it” pan as a gift. I find it best the day it is made, but have frozen pieces individually & warmed back up at reduced power in Microwave & enjoyed as a quick serving or two for a family week night meal dessert.
I have to say I feel torn on this topic. On the one hand, unlike you, Anne, I *did grow up eating pudding mixes, in a family of six with only one parent's income. So there's some nostalgia for me, and if the convenience works for you, why not take it?
On the other hand, I just finished reading one of Joel Salatin's books, and now I'm reading Omnivore's Dilemma, and both authors make clear that this kind of processed food is part of a system that bankrupts our environment and directly ties to our alarming obesity rates. As someone who can no longer even eat this kind of stuff without bad consequences (maybe even due to my childhood legacy diet), I can't go there myself now, and I wouldn't encourage anyone else to do so.
That said, I wouldn't judge anyone's choice, especially right now when budget and time convenience are paramount. And wow, does that cake in your photos look divine!
On a separate topic, I've posted a Charleston travelogue as part of that trip I mentioned to you in December: https://www.brunettegardens.com/p/charleston-travelogue
On Thursday, I'll publish a piece I wrote about the small towns we visited along the way, including Crossville. I mention you in that post!
I make mini Bacardi rum cakes as Christmas gifts for my coworkers. One year I found a scratch recipe & made that instead of the cake mix version. It wasn’t that much (or any) better, and it wasn’t as quick & easy. Next year I went back to the cake mix version.
My mom took Wilton cake decorating at JC Penney's. She bought her cake decorating supplies from a local place nearby. The cake decorating place recommended box cake mixes and claimed many bakeries used bulk cake mixes. Truth or fiction, I'll never know for sure. But my mom made a lot of money with her cottage business of decorated cakes using box cake mixes. Betty Crocker was her mix of choice.
And, that's why I hate yellow cake. I'll eat any box cake mix other than yellow. She also used shortening and that fake vanilla for icing, and it was whiter than buttercream as a result. Back then, that was the Wilton way. I hate that icing.
I do remember a friend taking decorating lessons in the 90s, and I think Krusteaz was the cake mix being touted at the time.
I bake from scratch and from mixes. Wacky cake is a great egg-free cake to make.
Your pistachio cake sounds amazing--I do remember the Watergate cake at potlucks.
Re: my comment on the Hornet’s Nest Cake, I meant to mention that I do find it important to always use whole milk, as opposed to 2% or fat free, since this recipe has no eggs or oil in it.
Love all the cake mix Dr books/ res pies & the chocolate cake mix Dr etc. my baked from scratch SIL loves to eat them... she never knew it was a mix and was amazed at how good they were. Lol.
Still my go to and love the watergate cake, and the butter scotch poppyseed cake w/ a cup of sherry!!!
The (only) cake I make that’s uniformly loved by friends is a recipe from our neighbor from the 1960s. Pearl B.’s chocolate chocolate chip sour cream Bundt cake called for a box of instant chocolate pudding. It’s a perfect, moist cake every time. And my friend from Mobile makes wonderful caramel cakes--cake from mix, and frosting from scratch. I’m still working hard to perfect the frosting! A former secretary shared her most secret recipe for a rum Bundt cake that would make you swoon. One of the secrets? Instant vanilla pudding. Can’t argue with success.
Thanks for this Ann. I was going to make that NYT pistachio cake ($13!?) for a friend who’s mad about anything pistachio, but yours looks yummier. Also wanted to say I borrowed your American Cookie book from the library and after trying 3 recipes I decided to buy the book! The Cake Mix Doctor book gave me the confidence to start baking all those years ago and was thrilled to be asked to bring a cake to gatherings. I freely admitted to people that it had started with a mix and no-one ever turned down a slice!
Anne, I'm curious to know if you've tried any British cake mixes or pudding mixes, because pretty much the baseline is if something was made with one it will be terrible here, but I know so many bakers I trust in America like you like using them!
I have to admit I don’t think I’ve ever made a cake using a pudding mix, but I’m intrigued. My mother was a from scratch baker and proud of it. Maybe suffering through the war in Great Britain with shortages made her eager to use all that flour, butter, sugar and eggs without restrictions. But a good cake is a good cake--and this one sounds terrific. As they say, the proof is in the pudding (or the cake!).
Oh, god, I'm a hopeless purist. Having said that, I'm also getting older...just like all of us. So, I want to thank you for challenging me to attempt this and for introducing me to the syrup, Morin. Can't wait to see if I can toss overboard my tired old ethics and try the cake!!
Hello Anne!
I consider myself a great “scratch” baker but I agree, cakes made with pudding mix or jello are delicious! I make a lemon cake using a boxed lemon cake mix and lemon jello. It is the perfect lemon cake with lemon glaze and everyone loves it!! My luscious Triple Chocolate cake with chocolate glaze also uses a boxed devils food cake mix and chocolate pudding mix. I have been accused of also adding cocaine to it because it is that addictive!! When I use this same recipe for cupcakes my go-to chocolate icing recipe is from Cake Mix Dr. Returns, page 478 and they are to die for!! I have made many cakes from your two Cake Mix Dr books and all have been happily eaten up and been given rave reviews!
Bake what makes you and those you love happy and if “the proof is in the pudding” then so be it! ❤️
I love your mom’s rule about frosting from scratch. My mom mostly scoffed at mixes for anything but over time bent her rules.
May we all roll back to the 70s and take our cooking less seriously 😒
Your email came in at 7 am, but I just read it because I was busy making creme patissiere from Jello
Cook and Serve vanilla pudding. It's going in the middle of a Boston Cream birthday cake that I made from a "Doctored up" box of cake mix. I'll freeze the leftover egg whites for a future project.
Last summer, I baked the good old Watergate cake for a family reunion. I used Cool Whip and a second box of pistachio pudding for the frosting (not at all from scratch). The oldsters remembered it fondly and the little ones couldn't get enough. Good times!