Homemade Cake vs Boxed Cake
By: Halle Dodson
Tags: Cake, Food, Baking

Now, I’m not going to lie I am extremely guilty of taking the easy way out when it comes to baking a cake. I alway opt out for the convenience of a boxed cake instead of taking the time to make one from scratch. So I decided it was time for me to put the classic vanilla boxed cake to the test, and let me tell you I was surprised by the results.

Before this, I had only made a homemade cake once and it did not go well at all. We made the batter into cupcakes, they were extremely dry and even somehow tasted like cornbread. I haven’t had the best experiences with homemade cakes, but before I made my homemade cake I decided to start with my trusty box cake. I decided to use a Betty Crocker Super Moist French Vanilla Cake Mix, as it is one of my personal favorites.

Recipe: 1 box of Betty Crocker french vanilla cake mix 1 cup of cater 1/2 cup of vegetable oil 3 eggs

First, pour the boxed cake mix into a medium or large sided bowl. Now go ahead and add in your water, vegetable oil, and eggs to the cake mix.

Mix with a whisk or a spatula until well combined (about 2 minutes). Make sure to scrape the sides of the bowl to allow for all of the cake mix to be well dispersed. It’s important to not overmix the batter or else the cake will turn out dense, and sometimes have a chewy texture.

Spray a 9 x 13 in pan and pour in your cake batter. Be sure to spray the pan enough or else the cake will stick to the pan. Put the cake in the oven at 350ºF for 28–33 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted into the cake.

This is what my boxed cake looked like before I attempted to take it out of the pan and decorate it. Now, I’m not sure if you agree with me, personally I thought it was slightly too golden brown, but it wasn’t the end of the world.

Where this beautiful boxed cake to a wrong turn was when I tried to take it out of the pan. The cake didn’t turn out looking very nice at all to say the least. In fact, a few people laughed when they saw the final result and honestly, I don’t blame them. It was a very ugly cake, and I thought I could make it prettier by adding sprinkles but boy I was wrong. There was no saving this cake.

I mean just take one look at it and tell me it doesn’t look like an abomination, odds are you can’t. I’m not going to lie, it didn’t taste that great either. As someone who makes boxed cakes more than I care to admit, this one was one of my worst. Now it didn’t taste terrible by any means, but it certainly could have been better. It was a little dry, plus I ended up over-mixing it, causing it to be slightly on the dense side. Now, after my failed attempt at a simple boxed cake it was time to make one from scratch.

Recipe: 2 3/4 cups of cake flour 1 3/4 cups of granulated sugar 1 1/4 teaspoons of baking soda 1 1/4 teaspoons of baking powder 1 teaspoon of salt 4 egg whites 1 cup of sour cream 1 1/2 cups of whole milk 1 tablespoon of white distilled vinegar 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

First, combine the cake flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl.

Next, in a different bowl whip your 4 egg whites with either a whisk or an electric mixer (I used an electric mixer because it’s much faster) until soft peaks form. Your egg whites should be stiff enough that when you lift the whisk out of the bowl they will stick to the whisk. Make sure you don’t over mix your egg whites or else they will become to stiff and may even leave lumps in your cake batter.

Then, add your sour cream, milk, vanilla, and vinegar to your dry ingredients. Mix those together until everything is well combined.

Lastly, fold your egg whites into the cake batter a little bit at a time. Make sure that you fold the egg whites in, that way you keep the air in the batter.

Pour your batter into a sprayed 9 x 13 inch pan at 350ºF for about 18–22 minutes. Just like the boxed cake, you’ll know it’s done when a toothpick comes out clean.

This is the homemade cake before I put icing on it, and as you can probably tell this one actually decided to come out of the pan. You can’t really tell from this picture, but this cake was extremely thin. Overall, this cake turned out much better than the boxed cake which kind of surprised me considering what happened the last time I had made a homemade cake.

Also, since this was a homemade cake I thought I would make some homemade frosting to go with it. Now, this frosting was a real winner and its extremely simple. I did half this recipe as well, since I only made “half” a cake.

My boxed cake didn’t turn out very pretty, so I thought maybe instead of throwing sprinkles on the cake last minute, I would dye the frosting pink and if I do say so myself, this one turned out much better. It may not be a perfect cake but it’s the best I could do, mainly because I didn’t want to pipe the frosting on so I just used a spatula and spread it around everywhere. But either way the cake was delicious. It was extremely moist and super flavorful, despite being extremely thin. I would recommend using this recipe and try to make your own version of this cake, I hope you can make yours with a little more creativity.

The two cakes side by side (boxed cake on the left and the homemade cake on the right)