I have used boxed cake mixes and the like for decades, just like you have. My only “from scratch” cake is a pound cake that my mother got from her 2nd mother in law in 1958. It comes out so good every time. I make 2 kinds of cookies, one is a Mrs. Fields knock off and the other is oatmeal. They are both passable. But that's it for “from scratch” baking because most of my baked products are suitable for filling pot holes. Most of my baking uses boxed mixes.
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Since the stay at home life style has become so popular, I have been watching and following YouTube videos to widen my cooking horizons. Some of them involve doctoring boxed mixes to make them taste more homemade. It was almost sacrilegious to me! Adulterate mixes! The gawds would rain down their disapproval! But what an eye opening idea to me.
That idea spurred me to start adding stuff to all kinds of mixes and tins of food. Last night, I jazzed up tinned sweet rolls.
I started with these rolls and unrolled them. I rolled the strips in left over toffee topping from making toffee peanuts. There are bits of nuts in that topping along with cinnamon and sugar. I rolled them back up, pushed the middle up a little to make them like the picture and topped them with more cinnamon and sugar. I baked them and put the icing on while they were really hot and it melted down over everything so well. They were so good!
Videos suggest replacing oil in cake mixes with butter, adding extra eggs and vanilla, changing water to milk and other enhancements that had not occurred to me. I can take a roll of cookie dough, slice them, add toppings like cookie sugar which is grainier than regular sugar, or nuts or M&M’s. You get the idea but that was as far as I went with ad libbing.
Now I am sure all ya’ll do these kinds of things and can educate me with yours so add any ideas in the comments. I look forward to reading them.
Be safe and be well. Eat more sweet rolls too.