Agreed for flavor - using good ingredients makes a huge difference. But texture is also a big part of how we experience food, and box cake's texture is very hard to beat IMO (at least I've never been able to do it).
Agreed for flavor - using good ingredients makes a huge difference. But texture is also a big part of how we experience food, and box cake's texture is very hard to beat IMO (at least I've never been able to do it).
I'm currently reading 'Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat' and the author talks about this exact dilemma. She attributed the difference to the fact that box-cake recipes tend to use oil for the fat, while recipes from scratch often prefer butter. The way oil can fully coat the flour changes how the gluten chains develop during baking, which changes the texture.