What a disappointment! I haven't baked a box mix in quite a while, but used to be a good standby for a quick batch of cupcakes for the neighborhood kids or grands, or a one layer Jiffy mix for a pineapple upside down cake. Even my dear mother, who was an excellent baker, would use a mix now and then. Sad to see something go downhill like that.

I used to use a mix (Duncan Hines only) for quick cupcakes when they I needed to take them into school when the boys were young. I also have one cookie recipe and a couple of others that start with a cake mix, but I haven't made them for a while and my goal is to duplicate them from scratch. Not only do ingredients change, but the sizes have changed.

I thought you were going to say you found an awesome box cake mix. I swear I can always tell when something's box even when it's doctored up. Boo to the box! Did you taste the cake yet?

I'd never checked that before so I looked at the 2 boxes of cake mix in the cupboard. They're just standard mixes, not the fancy ones - I like to have them on hand for last minute desserts if the kids come over.

The Duncan Hines Dark Chocolate Fudge cake (16.5 oz) did have sugar as the first ingredient and then flour.

Betty Crocker Delights Triple Chocolate Fudge Super Moist (15.25 oz) listed flour first then sugar.

Yeah, maire-cate, I looked on line to see if Betty Crocker was any better and they did list flour first, but then the next 2 ingredients were sugar so I figured if you added those together, it would end up being mostly sugar.

Mimou, I looked up a homemade recipe and it puts in 2 c of flour at 120g each for 240g and 1 1/2 c of sugar at 200g each for 300g so that may be it...but still disturbing.

My grandmother was an excellent baker - I remember her using the kitchen table to roll out her strudel - but even she would use cake mix, so that was always the one thing I always thought was acceptable to do from store-bought!

I used the same mix-the butter cake-and I was a little disappointed. I expected it to be special in taste and texture and it really was not as good as a regular mix. I try to only use Duncan Hines when I do use a mix.

I totally believe it. Salt and sugar, the diet Big Food has Americans on. They're cheap, addictive, and kill brain cells. Perfect combo for corporate America.

I remember that cake as well, btw. So good.

I grew up on box cakes and used them with my own growing family. The few times I have had "scratch" cakes I found them noticeably drier. BAck in the day my MIL made DH his FAVORITE German Chocolate cake for his birthday each year. I tried it ONCE. Never new what all the talk was about--more work--need special flour and chances of a FLOP were greater. The boxed version was MUCH MUCH moister. Now we don't eat sweets much but for Easter I always make a carrot cake. From scratch, no box but it has so much extra stuff in it, coconut, raisins, carrots it turns out moist and delish every time!! Your texture experience with a box cake may be in your technique. If you read the label they have changed DRAMATICALLY how they recommend you stir/mix them. Gone are the days when I would really beat the heck out of the batter making it thicker and lusher. Now they tell you to mix very little. The modern baker is in a hurry.

Annie, I am with you on the extreme sweetness of most desserts nowadays. They seem to taste like nothing but sugar, and your discovery seems to mean they ARE nothing but sugar!

My mother makes a few legendary cakes and her coconut cake has almost no sugar, maybe half a cup. Her chocolate pound cake is barely sweet....that's what is so good about it. I don't make cakes anyway---pies are my thing----and would certainly not waste even five minutes on a box of sugar!

Our dessert today is a carrot cake from Alon's in Atlanta, whose desserts are usually excellent but this is the first carrot cake I've had of theirs. It was DD's choice.....she has a sweet tooth like her father's family so she and DH will probably love it even if it is too sweet for the rest of us.

If you bake from scratch, you will know that many (not all) recipes have equal volumes of flour and sugar -- brownies have more sugar than flour even by volume, and sugar weighs more that flour for the same volume so that explanation is legit. Doesn't address the changes in size, ingredients, or fact that some inevitably taste like the cardboard box they come in.

Yes, I see it for brownies, but for cakes by volume I expect more flour. Of course with the white flour, it's hardly like eating anything at all anyway.

Well, next Easter, it's definitely going to be a dessert from scratch. I'm having DH take the cake to the gym today to get rid of it.