Boxed baking products are the best way to easily and quickly get a fresh, warm treat for cheap without leaving your home. I love them because there’s no thinking involved. You throw ingredients into a bowl, mix them, and pop them in the oven.
However, I’ve long been a sheep in the elevating boxed baked goods movement. The hacks are usually easy and take the same time as the regular instructions or only a little longer. The difference is enormous, though: these hacks take a simple box mix into the stratosphere.
- Start with The Basics
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Your first step for improving the final product of the box in your hand is a substitution of melted butter for oil. Butter makes the flavors more prominent and creates a denser product, perfect for cakes and brownies, making it thick and ooey-gooey.
Butter is an easy substitute, but the biggest decision happens in the store. What mix should I buy? I usually reach for Betty Crocker, but that isn’t always the best brand. Duncan Hines has a great chocolate cake, Ghirardelli has the best brownie mix, and Betty Crocker has a fantastic yellow cake mix. My best suggestion is to pay attention to what’s worked for you in the past or do a Google Search or two to see what other people recommend.
I also like to add extra spices to the mixes, like cinnamon, nutmeg, and all the warmer flavors. Regardless of what you’re baking, adding something from your spice cabinet could make a huge difference in the long run. Fair warning, though: be careful not to add too much. For instance, allspice, while it smells delicious, is super concentrated, so an eighth of a teaspoon is usually more than enough. Unless, of course, you’re crazy about it, and in that case, all the more power to you.
- Just Cake to La Gâteau
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My gospel for improving cake mix was found on Pinterest in the form of a Reddit repost during my middle school years. The tips remain true, and when doing my diligent research on TikTok, I saw that many popular and expert bakers recommended the same tricks.
As I said earlier, oil is substituted for melted butter, but water should also be replaced with milk, and an extra egg usually ties the whole thing together. It makes the cake feel more homemade.
The milk increases the cake’s moisture, and the extra egg ensures that the added liquid is held together rather than falling apart after baking. Therefore, you get a delicious, warm, dense, and moist cake that could compete with a real, bona fide bakery.
I also recommend adding fillings. One of my favorite creations, which I’ve repeated a couple of times, is simple lemon cupcakes. I cut out the center of them to fill them with raspberry preserves and top with vanilla buttercream. The preserves give you that extra tangy flavor with the vanilla buttercream, undercutting it with a beautiful sweetness.
Look out for jams, creams, preserves, or maybe your favorite chocolate that you think would work well with whatever cake you are baking. There are plenty of online resources if you want to try something new, or you could stick with the classics like cherry pie filling in a dark chocolate cake to give you black forest cake vibes.
- Elevate your brownies: The People’s sweet treat
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Black forest cake is a good option for chocolate, but so are brownies. I’m not a huge brownie fan, mostly because I’m very picky with what I like about them. So, of course, I like to change up what goes in.
The most popular suggestion I found was to replace the water for the mixture with coffee. This technique is used in a lot of different chocolate baked goods because the coffee does an excellent job of making the chocolate sweeter by taking away any of the bitterness.
Extra vanilla extract and adding chocolate chips are also small ways to greatly improve the overall brownie. I support the inclusion of chocolate chips because the melted pockets of gooiness are like gold in the center of delectable chocolate fluff.
- Frosting: The Most Important Topping
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Recently, I learned that you’re supposed to whip the packaged frosting, which came as a complete shock to me because I eat it straight out of the can. In hindsight, this makes complete sense because canned frosting always falls flat in comparison to the fluffy and airy feel of homemade frosting.
Another reason I used to avoid canned frosting was because there used to be fewer flavors. Now, with the whipping hack and the abundance of options at my disposal, I can confidently say canned frosting is a viable choice.
One of the best reasons to make homemade frosting is so you can lick the paddle after you’re done mixing, and who would want to miss out on that? I also love the customizability because only an insane person (me) would want peppermint frosting. It goes so well on a chocolate cake, though.
My other suggestion for frosting is to pair unique flavors together. For example, a cinnamon cake with coconut frosting, salted caramel on vanilla, maybe with some cooked apples between the layers, or orange buttercream on a lemon or chocolate cake.
- Make Your Treats Pretty
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Presentation is key. Another way to use the top of your baked good to make it gleam is through decorations, such as edible glitter, flowers, cake toppers, and more. You could theme it if you’re bringing them somewhere or just have fun making your sweet treat a little prettier.
Fancy piping is always an option, but if you have trouble controlling the piping bag, you could also add a fancy chocolate design on top. There are so many easy molds, or you could go abstract. It’s super easy to do! Whether you’re using chocolate or candy melts for some color, it brings what you’ve baked to another level.
I’m a huge fan of baking, and while I’ve stepped up to from scratch recipes and addiction to websites with titles like “best recipes from this year,” I’ll always go back to my roots. The reason? There’s no getting around the fact that a simple box mix cupcake with my favorite fillings and frostings hits the spot every time.
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