Hi everyone! I’m new to this site and very excited that I even found it while searching.

I’m a novice baker. I wouldn’t even really call myself a baker. I love being in the kitchen whether I’m cooking dinner or making treats but I am no expert at any of them.

My son’s birthday party is in November and money has gotten very tight since adding a new addition to the family so I decided I am going to bake him his own sheet cake this year.

I’d like it to be a half sheet cake but am not sure how many boxes of mix I need. I have a few questions if y’all could help me, please,  I would so much appreciate it!

1) How many boxes of mix?
2) Can I mix chocolate and white?
3) The idea is to have black, blue, and red or black, white, and red…so I was going to use at least 1 chocolate and 1 white and then some dye for the blue or red. Is that advisable? If so, is liquid food coloring ok or gel?
4) Frosting??
5) How can I get the cake to stand tall?

If I’m forgetting something that I obviously should know but don’t seem to by all means, please indulge me! I’m not always a quick thinker and forget the simplest of things.

Thank you everyone for your help!

Minatsuchan - 08 October 2012 11:30 AM

how many boxes of mix

This is a “scratch baking” site, not a “box mix” site, so you won’t receive much encouragement on that part of your plan.  That said, you can calculate how many boxes you need by comparing the volume of the pans used in the recipe to that of the sheet cake pan you’re going to use.  Box mixes are very tolerant of abuse, so you might be able to get a taller cake by increasing the amount of batter in the pan, but a safer way would be to bake two layers.

It’s great that you want to learn to bake, but I’m not sure that saving money is the most realistic goal from baking things yourself, particularly when you have to add in the cost of boo boos while learning a new skill.  Most of us bake because we think we produce a much better product than we can purchase at the local bakery, but it’s often expensive in terms of ingredients and time.

Thank you!
I should’ve know better than to ask about boxes. lol I’m all for making it from scratch, though. I’m just not sure how the “mixing” of batter will go since I would like a red, white, black marble cake.
I plan on just baking two 9x13’s since I don’t have a half sheet cake pan.

Saving money is just the plan for this birthday party, but generally speaking when I bake I have no intentions of saving money and rather just do it because I like to make the dessert I’d like to try or some other reason of the sort. The bakeries I’m used to in Tokyo put the “famous” bakery here to real shame so it’s definitely of no concern. lol

Are there any recommendations for cake batter recipes? Preferably, if this at all makes sense 1 for chocolate and 1 for “white” (to allow for food coloring).

I did find a recipe for buttercream icing and also for marshmallow fondant so I’ll be trying those out as well.

Minatsuchan - 08 October 2012 04:55 PM

Are there any recommendations for cake batter recipes?

Why, yes!  This website is provided by Rose Levy Beranbaum, who is a baking cookbook author. Her classic baking book is “The Cake Bible”:

  http://www.amazon.com/Cake-Bible-Rose-Levy-Beranbaum/dp/0688044026/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1349733826&sr=1-1&keywords=cake+bible

Her newest book is “Rose’s Heavenly Cakes”:

  http://www.amazon.com/Roses-Heavenly-Cakes-Rose-Beranbaum/dp/0471781738/ref=la_B000APEDSA_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1349733853&sr=1-4

Both of those books have recipes for several different white cakes and chocolate cakes, as well as many different frostings and fillings.  For obvious reasons, we can’t post her recipes here, but people will be delighted to answer any questions you have about her recipes or the baking process.

Be aware that most recipes you find for buttercream frosting on the internet are confectioner’s sugar-based, which tend to be overly sweet and somewhat grainy.  Children won’t care, of course.

Minatsuchan,

I, too, am mostly new to serious cake baking, since I started two years ago after my son was born.  I’d really encourage you to try a scratch recipe for your son’s cake - it’s not hard to make a (much) better-than-store-bought cake and it’s a great skill to add to your repertoire for the many birthdays yet to come. 

Try checking your local library for either of the two cake books by Rose Beranbaum.  My library has Rose’s Heavenly Cakes, which has a marble cake recipe I bet would work great - I’ve made it and it was lovely.  I believe for that recipe you just make a yellow cake batter, divide it and add chocolate to part of it.  For your cake, you could just divide it in 3rds, make one chocolate, another leave plain, and dye the 3rd. 

Another tool I use when switching pan sizes - if your original recipe doesn’t have an amount of batter listed, just how many pans the recipe is supposed to fill, you can use the Wilton cake charts to estimate how many cups of batter the recipe uses and figure out how many cups you would need for the pan size you want to use.  It’s not exact, of course, but it’s a starting place: http://www.wilton.com/cakes/making-cakes/baking-wedding-cake-2-inch-pans.cfm

Good luck!