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20161014 142233
20161014 142233
Recipes

You Don’t Need Betty Crocker to Make Your Own Chocolate Cake Mix

This article is written by a student writer from the Spoon University at UIUC chapter.

It usually takes a lot of time to make anything from scratch.  And time is the one thing college kids don’t have. Sometimes it’s easier to grab some food that’s packaged in a box that requires only a few steps or simply needs to be heated up.  

However, a lot of times, you won’t know exactly what’s going into your body if you decide to go the boxed route. Making your own food from scratch is the only sure way to know exactly what you’re eating every time.   

This is true especially for dessert. Boxed cake mixes usually have tons of sugar, salt and other additives to make it taste better.  If you make your own mix, you have full control over what you’re putting in. You can add less sugar, or use wheat flour instead of white. You can also use coconut oil instead of butter. The options for healthier substitutes are endless.

Next time you want to make a cake, but fear you won’t have enough time, try throwing together the beginning ingredients the night before and then they’ll be ready to use whenever you need them.  

“Boxed” Chocolate Cake Mix

Difficulty:BeginnerPrep time: 5 minutesCook time: 30 minutesTotal time: 35 minutesServings:10 servings

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. Photo by Angela Kerndl

    Mix together the flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, sugar, and cocoa powder together in a large bowl.

  2. Photo by Angela Kerndl

    Place mix into a container and refrigerate until you decide to bake the whole cake. The mix should be fine for up to a few weeks.

  3. Mix the eggs, vanilla extract, milk, and the coffee together in a separate bowl and then add it to the dry mixture. Put the cake mix into a pan and place it into the oven for 30 minutes at 350°F. Let cool.

Either way, if you decide to buy chocolate cake mix, you’re not going to save that much time anyway. It’s hardly less convenient to throw a few extra ingredients together yourself rather than use the ones that have been sitting in a packaged box for who knows how long.   

Besides, homemade anything usually tastes better anyway. Add toppings if desired and enjoy your made from scratch cake!

Angela is a broadcast journalism student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She recently spent six months eating her way through Mexico. She looks forward to spending another six months studying abroad, this time in Hong Kong. She is currently training for her first ever marathon and hopes to qualify for the Boston Marathon. She loves spending time cooking while listening to NPR. You can follow her on instagram @angelakerndl and @hangry.angela!...also, her spirit animal is Haruki Murakami.