Baking mixes that taste homemade.

Summer is a high entertaining time for many of us. I love to cook, and I love spending time with friends. Occasionally, I am too ambitious with my menus and must find some acceptable short cuts. Sandra Lee, the chef responsible for the “Semi Homemade” cooking show and cookbooks, is the queen of cooking shortcuts with results as delicious as if the dish was made from scratch. Here are some baking mixes that, when doctored up a bit, I hope you will agree can give a ‘made from scratch’ baked good a run for its money. I use baking mixes to save the time of measuring and assembling the dry ingredients.

Enhancing mixes:

I will usually substitute melted butter for vegetable oil.
I substitute milk or buttermilk for water.
I never use a prepared icing because a homemade icing is usually simple to make, and much tastier.
Adding an extra egg to a cake mix will make the cake taste richer.
If it’s a citrus flavor, replace water with juice of the appropriate citrus, and lots of zest.
Adding a little more vanilla extract to a chocolate or vanilla mix, or almond extract to a strawberry cake mix is always a good thing.

The Williams-Sonoma Lemon and Chocolate Bundt Cake mixes are very good. For the lemon cake, I would add some lemon zest to make sure the lemon flavor is strong enough. It does not need any other additions or substitutions. For the Devil’s Food Bundt Cake, I would substitute milk for the water. The mixes are $18.95 each.

My daughter put me onto Ghirardelli Dark Chocolate Premium Brownie Mix. It is very good! Not all supermarkets carry this, so if you are unable to find it, order it from Walmart here for $2.50 a box.

This Ghirardelli Dark Chocolate cake mix gets rave reviews. I would give this a try before adding an egg because the reviews say it is very rich. I would substitute milk for water and butter for the oil because I can’t help myself. It can be found in m ost supermarkets.

Stonewall Kitchen, a national brand based in Maine, makes very high-quality baking mixes. I have successfully used the Traditional Popover Mix. It calls for 2 cups of water. I would start by using 1 cup of water and 1 cup of milk and see if you like the texture of the popovers. Then try 2 cups of milk in place of the 2 cups of water. When I used this mix, I was concerned that the popovers wouldn’t climb as high as I like without either sugar or flour inside the muffin cups for the batter to grab onto. I brushed the cups with melted butter and then dusted with granulated sugar if I was using them for breakfast with jam, or flour if I was using them as Yorkshire pudding with a roast. $6.95 for one box.

These cookies are delicious. No substitutions are necessary. Each mix makes 20 cookies. $8.95 per box.

This makes a delicious coffee cake. All the ingredients are great and make a moist, tasty cake. $11.95 per box.

The King Arthur Baking Company has a campus in Vermont where they have a wonderful cooking supply store, a bakery, a café, and a cooking school. It is worth a visit. Their products have a good reputation, including their cake mixes. This Golden Yellow Cake Mix has been described as ‘delicious and tender’. It can be made as cupcakes, a Bundt cake, a layer cake or a sheet cake. Just make your own icing and you have the perfect cake. $6.95 per box.