Mark Thorson wrote:
> This web site makes the bold claim that most home bakers
> cannot make a cake from scratch better than from a boxed
> cake mix.
>
> http://www.waynesthisandthat.com/cake.html
>
> His reasons are that the ingredients are better measured,
> and they use ingredients that you can't get.
>
> He also says that making certain changes to the recipe
> on the box results in even better cakes. He cites a
> book, _The_Cake_Mix_Doctor_, which agrees with him and
> describes some of these methods.
>
> Most of his page describes the experiments he did to
> verify the tips in that book, and to compare all of the
> boxed cake mixes he could get his hands on. Most of
> the tips didn't pan out, but the modifications he
> developed worked very well.
>
> I think this will come as a surprise to many bakers,
> that making a cake from a box mix gives a better result
> than most bakers can achieve from scratch with butter, etc.

"MOST" bakers may be the key point. MOST people are lousy cooks in general.
That doesn't mean that a good cook cannot prepare a dish that outshines
something produced in a mediocre restaurant or a boxed mix. If people bake
cakes from scratch using lousy technique, ingredients, recipes, and
equipment, then indeed a box might be better, because it has been
contstructed to be more or less idiot-proof.

I can assure you that I can bake a cake that is better than boxed mixes. I
use cake flour and superfine sugar, I use real butter, and I use the
excellent recipes and techniques found in The Cake Bible and some Maida
Heatter books. I measure precisely. I use good cake pans and magicake
strips. I am careful to remove the cake from the over when it is just done
rather than letting it sit for another 5 minutes to dry out. And so forth.