Do Bakeries Ever Use Premade Cake Mixes For Their Bakes?

Strolling past the local bakery is both a delightful and risky undertaking. The sweet smell of pastries in the air and the beautifully-decorated cakes in the window can deliver a temptation strong enough to break even the most ironclad resolve. But would that be different if the products in the display cases weren't scratch-made by the bakers inside? Probably, but perhaps only in your mind, as many bakeries do use cake mixes in their kitchens.

One piece of evidence is that there are actually quite a few cake mixes out there sold in bulk and specifically marketed to bakeries. A 50-pound bag of red velvet cake mix doesn't have a lot of uses aside from a fairly large-scale operation. But beyond that, there are plenty of bakery employees on the internet spilling the beans. But just because the base is a mix doesn't mean that these bakers aren't putting their own spin on things.

Home bakers know that there are plenty of ways to improve store-bought cake mix and make it taste like bakery-quality. You can, for example, season the cake mix with warm spices in order to add an interesting new aroma to it, or use milk in a store-bought cake mix to give it more of a scratch-made flavor and texture. Professional bakers may also use tricks like replacing oil with butter or adding extra eggs in order to improve the quality of a packaged mix.

The downside to a packaged mix, of course, is that it comes with lots of adjuncts and preservatives. Things like sodium silicoaluminate (an anti-caking agent) and tetrasodium pyrophosphate (an emulsifier) don't show up on the ingredient list of those vintage cake recipes your grandma passed down. This isn't to say that these extra ingredients are necessarily bad — they're obviously food-grade — but they certainly aren't necessary if one chooses to mix things up themself.

These cake mixes do solve a lot of problems for bakeries that cook at a large scale, however. It is a time-consuming process to weigh and mix all of the ingredients that go into a cake, and when the costs of training employees and tossing out mistakes are added to the picture, it is clear why some bakeries might opt for a simple mix that they can subtly improve upon. Particularly when it comes to situations like supplying cakes for large events, where the dessert is not the star of the show, it is an easy way for these bakeries to save time and money. With a few additions to the mix and a bit of time spent decorating the cake beautifully, few will notice the difference.

We do understand why you wouldn't want to shell out the extra money for someone else to bake you a cake from even the best store-bought cake mixes, though. Anytime you shop at a boutique store, you want to believe that you are buying something made with real care. Higher-end bakeries are more likely to make everything from scratch because higher prices mean they don't need to think about cutting corners quite as much. But while they may be a safer bet, the only way to really be sure is to ask.