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Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

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Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#211

Post by vhcr »

gus_massa wrote: post #83
mh- wrote: post #4

> “It’s just so upsetting,” says Judith, whose cookie recipe was passed down by her mother. These “perfect little cookies” once made the rounds at bake sales, Christmas cookie exchanges, and birthdays. > a box of Betty Crocker chocolate cake mix, two eggs, and 1/3 cup neutral oil I realize it's not the point of the story, but this is like that Friends episode[0] where Phoebe finds out her grandmother's secret cookie…

The main problem here is that eggs are discrete, and you can't reduce a 30% when you use 2 eggs. (Actualy eggs are classified by size, but nobody is going to search for the exact shrinked egg.) Also, even a perfect escaled recipe will have different cooking time and temperature.

Grocery stores sell different sizes of eggs over here.

Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#213

Post by Eisenstein »

throwaway422432 wrote: post #164
nkrisc wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s the difference between making the mix yourself, or just buying the exact same ingredients already mixed at the correct ratio?

If you mix it yourself, you know exactly what is in it. This means you can vary/substitute ingredients such as heart salt for regular salt if you're on a DASH diet (half the sodium chloride is replaced with potassium chloride).

Do you know if that will even work? Baking is not cooking -- you can't just swap ingredients and get a similar result.

Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#214

Post by ksenzee »

al_borland wrote: post #127
ksenzee wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why on earth would I make pancakes from scratch when I can buy Krusteaz? If someone gets enjoyment from buying their flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, buttermilk, and oil separately, and turning pancakes into an entire weekend morning activity involving a sinkful of dirty dishes, then they should definitely do that. Meanwhile I’m dumping a cup of Krusteaz into a bowl, adding water, and eating pancakes within five minu…

How is dumping a cup of Krusteaz and water into a bowl producing more dirty dishes than adding flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt to the same bowl? A couple measuring spoons? The upside of having the ingredients is that you don’t need to specifically plan for pancakes. You can make them at the drop of a hat, along with many other things, as long as you keep the staples on hand. My mom always makes pancakes from scra…

By the time I’ve soured some milk (to take the place of the buttermilk in the mix) and measured out the oil, I’ve spent five minutes and used a pyrex measuring cup or two that I didn’t otherwise need. That’s apart from getting out the kitchen scale, dragging out the dry ingredient canisters, taking the time to weigh or measure everything… I just don’t get it. Why do I have people telling me I should dirty even one extra dish? Or spend even five extra minutes? All so I can, what? Be proud of my homemaking skills? I’d rather be coding a side project, thanks. Your mom is more than welcome to make her pancakes from scratch. I’m glad she enjoys it. Personally I prefer Krusteaz. I do not understand why I am getting pushback on this.

Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#215

Post by kragen »

ksenzee wrote: post #209
kragen wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your alternatives are mixing the flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt yourself or buying them premixed as Krusteaz, which doesn't contain buttermilk or oil. Neither of these involves more or less dirty dishes than the other. At a guess, the premixed stuff costs US$4/kg, while if you make it yourself, it's US$1/kg. You can mix up 5kg pretty easily in a few minutes, say 10 minutes, saving US$15, which is an hourly wage…

No, that’s incorrect. Krusteaz Complete Buttermilk Pancake Mix (which, at least where I live, ten miles from Krusteaz HQ, is the only “Krusteaz” anyone cares about) contains flour, sugar, dextrose, baking powder, salt, starch, soybean oil, and buttermilk. Unless I’m using enough of it to justify buying an entire canister of powdered buttermilk - which, by the way, is not cheap, and probably throws that $1/kg calculat…

In that case it's plausibly a good deal, and of course it would be extremely deplorable to try to take away people's ability to buy pancake mix, or smoke, or drink Coke, or drink Everclear, or snort cocaine. People are almost always better at making the choices that are best for themselves than anyone else would be, because they both know more about themselves and care more.

But that doesn't mean they're necessarily good at it, and explaining how to get better at it is the opposite extreme from being condescending. Condescending is, "Oh, you wouldn't understand," not, "Here's an demonstration of how to work this out for your own situation, which you'll be able to understand," which is what my comment is.

Maybe you think it's condescending because everyone already works out hourly wages for thriftiness-directed activities, but I can assure you that your friends are very unusual if you think that.

Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#216

Post by Marsymars »

WillAdams wrote: post #94
sevensor wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you, does anybody, actually eat Campbell’s concentrated Cream of Mushroom Soup? It’s nominally a soup, but it’s designed to be an ingredient. It’s the foundation of all our favorite gloppy casseroles.

I was actually quite fond of it as a soup when I was young --- then I broke my jaw on the first day of summer vacation when I was 14 and after 6 weeks of living on various liquid foods, haven't had it since.

I was on a liquid diet for a much shorter amount of time and my dad noted that he could blend chili. I still like chili and would probably default to that if I had to go back onto a liquid diet.

Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#217

Post by ajross »

nanolith wrote: post #45

Much to the chagrin of my mother, I made it a point about a decade ago to standardize old family recipes on "from scratch" versions. As part of the process, I also did some research on old recipes and fixed some of the corruption of these recipes that occurred during the copying and recitation, bolstering them with culinary techniques that were in use at the time. I also captured things that drift over time, such as…

[flagged]

Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#218

Post by zdragnar »

dml2135 wrote: post #199
crazygringo wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because we use those ingredients constantly and regularly. You don't usually make a particular type of cookie every week or two. You might only make it once every six months. And your cake mix won't stay good exposed to oxygen for six months. It's not about being helpless, c'mon.

Well this is why it makes sense to bake from standard ingredients like flour that have many different uses, instead of a processed box that can only be used to make one thing.

Eh? We eat almost no flour on a daily basis. We might eat cake every few months.

"Standard" is not standard at all.

Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#220

Post by lifeformed »

dml2135 wrote: post #202
lifeformed wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bet you couldn't consistently make a cake even half as good as a box mix for even triple it's cost. People who don't bake often then baking is just throwing some stuff together and heating it up. It's very hard to get consistent results! It's literally an exact science. Did you weigh all the ingredients exactly? Did your mix and sift them evenly? Is your leavening agent fresh? Did you account for the humidity in yo…

Baking may not be easy but it’s not that hard. If you bake from scratch, then maybe your results won’t be as good at first, but like anything else you will get better with experience and improve with time. Like, would you suggest people only eat frozen TV dinners because the results will be more consistent than if they cooked a meal themselves?

I'm saying its not trivial to replace a box mix in a recipe with from scratch ingredients. And no, frozen dinners don't have very good flavor or texture compared to the food it emulates. Boxed cakes are superior than from-scratch cakes by many metrics. But yes, I agree that people should definitely make their own and try to get better. It's just not a trivial replacement in a recipe. Box mixes in certain granny subcultures are a staple ingredient, almost on the tier of flour. If my meatloaf glaze recipe calls for ketchup, I'll just use Heinz or whatever, and not make it from scratch, unless it was really important to me.
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