Homemade Chocolate Cake Mix

It's Mix Monday! Oh I love exploding myths and making convenience foods from scratch. Why is it? Why do I love it? Well...perhaps it's the sweet stream of email flowing to my heart thanking me for saving family budgets around the world. Literally. It's so highly motivating to get a thank you note. It warms the coggles of my heart.

How many recipes call for a box of cake mix? Well in America anyway I've seen whole books written on the subject. They're books that doctor a cake mix into a lot of other stuff. However...what if the person making the cake or doctored mix had some crazy stipulations? I do. I want the mix being made with all natural ingredients, from scratch and things most people have access to. I want it made to taste wonderful without adding a lot of chemicals to my diet. Yikes...did I just say "diet" in blog entry about chocolate cake? Oh the irony of my existence is sometimes scary.

You will need some very high quality vanilla. It will still make a very impressive cake. If this recipe looks familiar, It is in fact an adaptation of the Chocolate Toffee Buttermilk Cake Mix. A simple form of that cake with some subtle changes.
The texture is still perfect.

Chef Tess' Chocolate Cake Mix

yield 18 cups mix (4 1/2 mixes total)

1 cup (8 oz) butter
6 cups (1 lb 11 oz) all purpose flour
3 cups (11.5 oz) baking cocoa
1 cup ( 4.5 oz) non-fat milk powder or soy milk powder
5 cups(2 lb) granulated sugar
4 tsp salt
1/3 cup baking powder (2 oz)
1T double strength vanilla ( or vanilla bean paste)
1 tsp ground cardamom
1 tsp cayenne pepper

To prepare mix: In a large 3 gallon or larger bowl, combine the flour, cocoa, dry milk
sugar, baking powder and salt very well. You may use an electric mixer if you have one with a large enough bowl. Cut the butter into chunks and along with the flavor extracts incorporate into the dry ingredients until the mixture resembles sand. Take the mix and a couple of cup fulls at a time, run through a flour sifter. I use a hand flour sifter that works very well to help the mix become smooth and homogeneous. ( Need a picture tutorial on the mix making process? See: My Yellow Homemade Cake Mix) Divide into quart size bags. 2o oz of mix equals one cake mix. This is almost exactly 4 cups of measured mix.
To bake:
Combine with 3 eggs
1/3 cup oil
1 cup water
200 strokes by hand or 3 minutes medium speed.

Bake time 350 degrees:
Pan size: 2 8 inch 33-35 minutes
2 9 inch 28-31 minutes
13 by 9 inch 32-35 minutes
bunt 38-43 minutes
24 cupcakes 18-21 minutes
High altitude: stir 1/4 cup all purpose flour into mix. Mix as directed.


Ganache Glaze:
1 cup cream
1 lb chopped high quality chocolate (we used Guitard)
1/4 tsp hazelnut oil
1/4 tsp fresh ground cinnamon

Boil one cup of cream in a sauce pan and pour over the chocolate. I added 1/4 tsp hazelnut oil, 1/4 tsp cinnamon, 1/8th tsp ancho chile powder...and blended until smooth. When chocolate is melted completely and the glaze is smooth, drizzle over one inch squares of baked cake.
These where double layers of cake with peanut butter filling...

There you go. Chocolate Cake mix. All natural.

Chocolate Toffee Buttermilk Cake Mix

I've been experimenting quite a bit with chocolate cake mix and making one to equal a box of mix one could purchase from a store. The stipulation being that it has natural ingredients, from scratch and things most people have access to. You will need powdered buttermilk to make this cake, it can be purchased at most grocery stores in the baking section. You can use regular non-fat milk powder or even soy milk powder in place of the buttermilk. Mind you, you can't call it buttermilk cake without the buttermilk. No cheating allowed. You will also need some very high quality vanilla, rum extract and some oil based toffee flavor. If you don't want to use the artificial flavors, go with just vanilla. It will still make a very impressive cake.

I've found this company called Lorann gourmet that sells flavor oils that are 4 times the strength of regular alcohol based flavors. You can find them in the craft stores, near the candy making equipment. We even have it at Wal-Mart here in Arizona, so it's good one to use. I use the English Toffee flavor in this mix. It makes a nice buttery base and adds a ton of great flavor. One little dram is enough flavor for 4 cakes. I have a picture of the cinnamon oil. Why oh why don't I have one of the English toffee?! Lorann also makes a ton of other flavors. Feel free to look them up.

Chef Tess' Chocolate Toffee Buttermilk Cake Mix

yield 18 cups mix (4 1/2 mixes total)

1 cup (8 oz) butter

6 cups (1 lb 11 oz) all purpose flour

3 cups (11.5 oz) baking cocoa

1 cup ( 4.5 oz) buttermilk powder

5 cups(2 lb) granulated sugar

4 tsp salt

1/3 cup baking powder (2 oz)

1 tsp (1 oz) English Toffee flavored oil

1T double strength vanilla ( I use Watkins)

1 tsp rum extract

1 tsp cayenne pepper (optional)

To prepare mix: In a large 3 gallon or larger bowl, combine the flour, cocoa, buttermilk
sugar, baking powder and salt very well. You may use an electric mixer if you have one with a large enough bowl. Cut the butter into chunks and along with the flavor extracts incorporate into the dry ingredients until the mixture resembles sand. Take the mix and a couple of cup fulls at a time, run through a flour sifter. I use a hand flour sifter that works very well to help the mix become smooth and homogeneous. ( Need a picture tutorial on the mix making process? See: http://cheftessbakeresse.blogspot.com/2010/01/my-yellow-homemade-cake-mix.html .

Divide into quart size bags. 2o oz of mix equals one cake mix. This is almost exactly 4 cups of measured mix.

To bake:

Combine with 3 eggs
1/3 cup oil
1 cup water
200 strokes by hand or 3 minutes medium speed.

Bake time 350 degrees:
Pan size: 2 8 inch 33-35 minutes
2 9 inch 28-31 minutes
13 by 9 inch 32-35 minutes
bunt 38-43 minutes
24 cupcakes 18-21 minutes
High altitude: stir 1/4 cup all purpose flour into mix. Mix as directed.

We had some unusually wonderful guests show up for a mid-afternoon visit yesterday. Among them was my father in law's cousin Julia. A sweet soul if you ever met one who took a particular liking to this chocolate buttermilk cake drizzled with ganache and topped with a maraschino cherry. I promised her I would post this recipe. So here is the recipe for the ganache:

Ganache Glaze:
1 cup cream
1 lb chopped high quality chocolate (we used Guitard)
1/4 tsp hazelnut oil
1/4 tsp fresh ground cinnamon

Boil one cup of cream in a sauce pan and pour over the chocolate. I added 1/4 tsp hazelnut oil, 1/4 tsp cinnamon, 1/8th tsp ancho chile powder...and blended until smooth. When chocolate is melted completely and the glaze is smooth, drizzle over one inch squares of baked cake.

These where double layers of cake with peanut butter filling...

There you go.

My Yellow Homemade Cake Mix

This is my cake mix.

Cake mixes. Who uses them? I think from the main stream baking point of view here in the USA it is pretty clear that most "middle of the road" every day cooks use cake mix. I know very few bakers who make them from scratch anymore. Which is too bad because we really have come far from how good cakes used to taste. I honestly love fresh from the oven scratch cake. Don't get me wrong, even I have used a mix in a pinch, but the flavor is always so boxed. I've always regretted it. I know there are a lot of folks who don't even know what scratch cake tastes like. So, when I decided to try a few cake mix recipes of my own that had the final product turn out nice but not taste boxed, it became really crucial to have people test the recipe who also liked scratch cakes. Finally after several disasters and a few good days...I came up with this recipe. Good tender crumb that holds together well enough to decorate with good flavor and no hint of a boxed cake taste. Another thing I wanted to do was make the mix reasonable accessible to those who had never used cake or speciality flour in their kitchen. Coming as a big shock to professional bakers, I measure with cups and spoons here on the blog because, lets face it, this blog isn't necessarily for the benefit of the seasoned bakers (though many learn a lot here) but for the students I know and love who have no idea where to start sometimes. So, please be patient with me for trying to take it to the masses. It just seems like a lost art that shouldn't be lost. If you happen to be one of those beginner bakers, please read my blog entry for "overnight started bread" for directions on how to measure flour and liquid. There is a method.

Do you know what else I wanted? I wanted to be able to use the same 3 eggs, 1/3 cup oil and 1 1/3 cup water it takes to make most cake mixes. Is that crazy?!

Finally what I came up with looked like this. Mr. Putt Putt says it tastes just like his mother's cake in 1955. So there. Take that. She was an amazing cook.

I really like it with a little flavored oil added to the mix but you don't have to add those if you don't have them. Almond or champagne being my favorite oil based flavors by far though orange brandy is divine. This can be made into a lemon cake by adding the zest of two lemons to the mix or orange. Using chopped maraschino cherries to make a cherry cake also works wonderfully. I'm still working on my fool proof chocolate cake mix.

Okay, here's the recipe. I use all purpose flour since most people don't have cake flour laying around. Again, I'm trying to make this as accessible to regular beginning bakers as possible and recognize that a few of you don't even know that there is a difference between different flours. If you use cake flour, use 5 cups and omit the cornstarch. It is only necessary with all purpose flour to lower the protein content and make it more conducive to tender cake production. However that being said, the cornstarch adds a little more moisture retention to the mix and I love it for that.

My Chef Tess Cake mix dry ingredients:
4 1/2 cups all purpose white flour
1/2 cup cornstarch
2 1/2 cup sugar
2T baking powder
1T salt
1 cup shortening (or butter )
1T double strength vanilla
Sift flour, cornstarch, baking powder, and salt through a flour sifter at least once to remove extra lumps. Combine shortening (or butter) with dry ingredients and vanilla in a Kitchen Aid type mixer with paddle attachment. Mix until well combined. If you don't have a mixer, it also works to cut the shortening into the flour as you would for pie crust and then run the mix through a hand held flour sifter (did you see the picture?) to make the mixture more smooth. The metal flour sifters are available to purchase at most grocery stores and baking sections of Wal-mart or Target.

Yields 9 cups cake mix. If you use butter, please keep your mix in the fridge!

4 1/2 cups mix equal to one boxed cake mix:

Combine with 3 eggs
1/3 cup oil
1 1/3 cup water
200 strokes by hand or 3 minutes medium speed.

Bake time 350 degrees:
Pan size: 2 8 inch 33-35 minutes
2 9 inch 28-31 minutes
13 by 9 inch 32-35 minutes
bundt 38-43 minutes
24 cupcakes 18-21 minutes
High altitude: stir 1/4 cup all purpose flour into mix. Mix as directed.

More cake mixes to follow as experimentation continues.

There you go. Smooooches!! I have several bakers on my friend's list from Face Book who are testing this recipe but I would love other feedback as well. Please feel free to email me with your results and any questions you may have.