Best box mix for brownies/cakes

[DrMickhead]

I wouldn’t say Im much of a baker but I enjoy once a week making some brownies or cheesecake/sponge cake from scratch for some puddings for the kids.
Last night I costed it up for my brownies and it was so expensive, the butter and chocolate/eggs. It would have been cheaper to have bought my dc some ready made brownies from Lidl.

I was wondering if anyone has advice on some box mixes as most seem to require water and egg or oil. I was trying to keep away from shite filled with emulsifiers and whatnot for the kids but I genuinely can’t justify the cost of baking from scratch, they have lots of fruit and vegetables offered to them and they will eat them but I will have to make sacrifices in our food shop just to make some cakes which I'm not happy to do. So any suggestions of packets for sponge/brownies etc or if you’ve found a good chocolate for baking with? I use the cheapest store brand chocolates (usually Aldi or Lidl) for baking and it’s always been fine.

Aldi own brand chocolate is definitely better than Cadbury now so I always go with that, not only is it better is cheaper. I like the betty Crocker mixes and they are frequently in Aldi or Lidl or on offers in supermarkets

i would add though that for cheap bakes consider fruit options, apple peeled chopped, dredged in sugar and cinnamon then mixed into a basic sponge mix and baked is delicious. Flapjack where you put half the flapjack on the bottom then a layer of tinned plums then the top layer of flapjack goes delightfully jammy and delicious, crumbles and pies are cheap, can be made with a tin of peaches, seasonal or free picked fruit and then just butter flour and a bit of sugar.

Wright's cake mixes are nice. I've found them in Sainsbury's and Tesco.

Brilliant idea thank you! Much appreciated ☺️

Thank you, we’re not far from Tesco, I’ll pick some up ☺️

Also @InfoSecInTheCity cadburys has definitely gone horrible. Oily tasting maybe? DH and I were showing our age last week just saying how there is no way they have a glass and a half of milk in there now!

It’s hard when the ready made stuff is so cheap!

My go to recipe for chocolate brownies is Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall’s Cocoa Brownies. They use cocoa powder instead of chocolate and are both cheaper and very easy to make. They would still be more expensive than a box mix, but they might be enough of a saver? Maybe even just for a more special treat. They are lovely and they freeze.

Hugh’s Brownies

If you do porridge for breakfast and have oats in anyway how about homemade flapjacks instead? Quite a bit cheaper to make? Or Scotch Pancakes/Drop Scones…dead easy and very cheap…delicious at any time of day. I use Mary Berry’s recipe but don’t bother with the orange zest. Kids can help make them too.

Mary’s Scotch Pancakes

If making your own cakes, try using baking spread instead of butter in the sponges as it makes a lovely light cake. I use baking spread in the sponge and proper butter for buttercream.

Thank you! I’ll do some flapjacks I think! And the Mary recipe sounds great. My brownie recipe is almost identical to Hugh’s, they’re delicious. Ive never tried nuts in them though, but now I might have to 😂

We love Ghirardelli’s brownie mix boxes from Costco (prob available elsewhere too). It’s about £10 ish in store for a box with 4 packs of mixture (a bit more online). You only need to add water, oil and an egg. Perfect results every time and they are really delicious.

Ive never used it before but I’ll pick some up, stork? Butter is just so costly. I’ve seen people online pick up reduced double cream and made their own butter but I don’t have time for that. It’s all the faff of cleaning up etc i just don’t have it in me

I’ve seen this! It would still work out much cheaper than making them from scratch so I’ll pick some up next time Im in Costco. If anything itll give me an excuse to go 😁

There are loads of recipes for brownies made with tinned chickpeas that get rave reviews.

Waitrose own brand spreadable butter at £2.75 for 500g is my favourite for baking. It's blended with veg oil and I think the balance of butter / oil makes better cakes than pure butter.

Always good to have an excuse to go!! They really are delicious and so easy to make…my kids can confidently make them too.

Another vote for the Ghirardelli one for brownies. I swirl peanut butter in mine

There's no point using box mixes. They're just flour and sugar.

A decent sponge cake is just 250g of flour, sugar and butter plus four eggs and raising agent. You mix the softened butter with sugar to make a paste then add the flour and beaten egg gradually.
Then bake on gas mark 4/5 for around 30 mins or til it comes out clean when you stick it.

Even easier cakes you can do just involve oil and yoghurt in place of butter.

Home bargains do jane asher cake mixes. The wright cake/bread mixes are sometimes in aldi too. With regards to the chocolate tasting oily....its got a lot of palm oil in it now 😦😦

Don't try to compare home made with supermarket brownies, ready made ones are horrible, home made ones will be at least as nice as those sold at farmers markets etc and about a quarter/third of the price.

The Costco box mix is good, but I haven't used it for a while so don't know the current price. But it's still not a fair comparison if you're using oil in the box mix vs real butter in home made - you could make cheaper home made ones by using oil instead of butter.

I use Mrs Bells recipe:

• 325g dark chocolate - 3 packs of Aldi or Lidl value dark chocolate - £2.10
• 125g butter - £1 or a bit cheaper for oil
• 150g castor sugar - not much - 20 p?
• 90g soft brown sugar - not much, 10 p?
• 3 large eggs, at room temperature - 70 p - I use M&S value free range eggs, at £1.40 a box
• 100g plain flour - not much 10 p?

So about £4 for all the ingredients, which will probably make more than the packet mixes with better quality ingredients, or could do it for less if you swap the butter for oil or spread. Comparing with farmers markets, you've got a whole tray for the price of a bought one

If I'm mixing in 'toppings' I use whatever leftover/spare we have or get them from Heron or Home Bargains, so fairly cheap, as would Aldi/Lidl 'mars bar' type things.

I've also sometimes found these from Heron or Home Bargains but that's very much a pot luck scenario, but an absolute bargain because I think they were £1 each and I may have bought quite a few.

www.amazon.co.uk/Menier-Dark-Chocolate-Brownie-405g/dp/B09BWC4HLJ?th=1

Thanks ladies! Ive screen shot all the suggestions and recipes! Much appreciated!

The only time I use real butter is crumble and pastry, for batter like cakes I use stork or ownbrand whatever the cheapest brand is in store that day. For a simple sponge we use the weigh your eggs method because it’s easy to scale up and down

So for an average batch of cupcakes weigh 2 eggs in their shells then use that same amount of self raising flour, caster sugar and butter/baking spread. If I want to make a bigger layered cake weigh 4 eggs and so on. I use this mix for cupcakes, sponge layered cakes, sponge with fruit cakes, microwave sponge cakes… if you want to make it chocolate then replace a quarter of the flour with cocoa powder. If you want to get fancy add some vanilla extract or a bit of cinnamon.

Another vote for the Costco boxes

I use Betty Crocker. The mix calls for vegetable oil instead of butter/marg, but we don’t have that so I use olive oil. Everything I make is so moist

Mr Kipling have just released some new brownie kits and they are delicious

I’m not a baker at all (I am a good cook but find baking unforgivingly precise!) but like the M&S brownie mix in a box. You just need butter and water, and I tend to add something like crushed up Mini Eggs or similar throughout then on top. It’s probably an actual baker’s nightmare and it is obviously junk, but it’s a nice rainy Sunday type activity and we like the results.