I purchased a cup cake book the other day not really looking at it and when i got home to sit down and read it they were almost all made from cake mixes. There is nothing easier than making a cake from a box. They are good and my favorite is duncan hines. I usually add just a little extra flour or something to say its my recipe.. I was a little dissappointed about the book though

We had a book about eating on a budget that was from the 1930's... where it went, I have no clue.

I'm trying a dumpling recipe today from Bobby Flay off the food network site. If it works out, I had to sub. olive oil for butter, I'll post the recipe and tweaks that I made. I made it to go with my crock pot chicken soup that I made today... just waiting on the dumplings to be done and then dinner shall be served!

Thanks so much for the sites! I shall check them out!

I love cooking from scratch. My go to cookbook is "JOY of Cooking". I probably have about ten different editions in my cookbook collection. Try that one if you want cakes from scratch.

The Cake Doctor is a great book. She does take cake mixes & adds stuff that you would never know it came out of a box. I also have a cookbook from Kansas State U that was my great aunts in college. She graduated from high school in 1915 so you know how old it is. Has some really strange stuff in it. Wood burning stove & stuff.

Yep, if I want a cake recipe I don't want it telling me about using a mix. I like recipes, more flavor than what comes in a box.

I don't like using pre-made ingredients either. I've used Food Network, but I LOVE using allrecipes.com --- while there are recipes using prepackaged stuff, it's easy to find the "from scratch" and all you have to do is search for the kind of recipe you're looking for and you'll get a huge list - I like to have it sort by ratings, then I check out the top rated ones and read some of the reviews (they're all rated and commented on so you don't have to waste your time on dud recipes!!) I have TONS of super recipes from that site!

I bought my betty crocker cookbook in 1959,love it because it has all the recipes and does not call for any mixes

There is a 2 volume Meta Givens Encyclopedia cookbook that has just about every receipe you can imagine. I think it might have been one of the resource books for the BC cookbook. If you see it in a used book store or elsewhere you should snap it up in an instant. Among other things it has the absolutely best fried onion ring receipe ever invented. These old cookbooks are the very best, because they expect you to cook, not combine ingredients and heat.

If you find a cookbook that is older than the invention of the electric mixer you will really find the receipes are quite different - mix with a whisk for 45 minutes- that kind of thing. Really makes for interesting reading, but not the way I bake.

I like seeing old cookbooks too. Geez, back "in the day" women must have spent a great deal of time in the kitchen. Course there was very little TV/no TV or much in pre-packaged foods.

I am not saying I have never used a mixer to mix a cake.

But, I mainly use my favorite wooden spoon when mixing a cakes, cookies, etc. I figure if I use a wooden spoon and mix by hand, I will be less lightly to develop that underarm jiggle by using all those arm muscles.