Say I want to add chocolate chips to a standard cake mix so instead of, say, a Duncan Hines Yellow Cake, I end up with a Duncan Hines Yellow Cake with chocolate chips.
How do I get them “into” the cake?
Mixing them in with the batter before pouring into the cake pan then baking = they migrate to the bottom of the cake and congeal (I guess it would be the top of the cake, though, after “de-panned”)
Pouring half the batter into the pan, sprinkling with chips, pouring in the rest of the batter then baking = chips migrate south again
Pouring all the batter into the pan, sprinkling chips on top of batter, then baking = again they sink
Pouring all the batter into pan, baking and adding chips to top during baking = They drop to the bottom after 5, 10 and 15 minutes. They sit atop the partially baked batter and melt/roast/burn at 20 minutes.
I’ve not tried to individually poke them into the cake past the 20 minute mark.
How about trying those mini chocolate chips? It sounds like the cake batter is just too thin to hold up the chips. I think that you might have a problem with the partially-baked cake collapsing if you take it out the oven long enough to poke the chips in individually.
The chip poking dealio was more of a jest than anything else, laddie. As for mini-chips, white chocolate chips, walnuts – just about everything – they all drop like lead zeppelins.
Yes, the batter becomes too thin once the cake begins to bake (the chips appear to be pretty well suspended prior to baking).
So how do I go about “thickening” the cake batter?
It might, I say might , help, if, when mixing the batter, you separate the eggs. Whip up the whites separately until stiff but not dry, then gently fold them and the chips(try small ones) into the main batter.
I don’t work with cake mixes much, most of my work in scratch. But heck, what’s one more try? Maybe I’ll give it a go myself and get back to you!
Now I have to go start the cinnamon rolls I am supposed to be making for the breakfast at church tomorrow morning. Anyone want to come by church and have a free roll, I’ll make extra! I’ve only met three other Dopers ever, two of which don’t seem to post anymore.
The problem you’ve got is you’re working with two different densities, and since the batter thins out in the first baking stages in the oven, those chips sink like the Titanic.
I wouldn’t try thickening the batter of the cake, because you’ll throw off the proportions and will most likely end up with something more along the lines of hockey pucks.
First, I’d like to see how Baker’s experiment works by seperating the eggs (although I still believe those will sink), but I think if you want a chocolate chip cake, you might want to go even smaller and use chocolate shavings. These will leave very small chips of chocolate, but I think they might be light enough that they won’t sink to the bottom.
Or, you can do what us professionals do: we don’t bother with making chocolate chip cakes, but will split the layers and fill them with chocolate ganache. Yum.
I have to say it, but I suspect that the main thing is not to use a mix. I once heard a description of what goes into a mix and it sounded like it was half tallow. I guess that is why it thins out when baking. When I was making some banana bread once, from a more-or-less standard recipe, my grandson asked if I would put chocolate chips in. Although I did not and in retrospect do not think that the tastes of chocolate and banana blend especially well, I thought, “Why not” and added a cup of chocolate chips to the recipe (actually, the recipe suggested chopped walnuts as an additive, so I was on pretty safe ground here) and all worked perfectly well. I don’t think an ordinary batter gets thin as it starts to heat and certainly those chocolate chips didn’t sink. Considering the effort you have put into this, the idea of making a “scratch” cake should not be daunting.
I’ve never tried this, but after having the chocolate chips that I inpulsivly threw into brownie batter sank to the bottom, a baking friend suggested coating them with flour.
My specialty is chocolate chip cookies (from scratch) so chip sinking aint a problem. I might suggest, though, that you never put M&M’s into cookies. They just don’t taste right.
I’d have to agree with michael here. I do quite a lot of baking, and have never really had the problem of chips, nuts, etc. sinking to the bottom. I also never bake from a package, which I suspect is why. Scratch baking (of a cake or brownies, anyway) is really not that hard to do, tastes much better, and is probably quite a bit healthier, too.
and a little 
makes them darn chips stay up. 
