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Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

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Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#501

Post by AlecSchueler »

alexdbird wrote: post #438
unwind wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure they do, but nobody seems to have posted it yet. The exact box in the article (it had a link!) has the following ingredients listed: Enriched Flour Bleached (wheat flour, niacin, iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), Sugar, Corn Syrup, Cocoa Processed with Alkali, Leavening (baking soda, monocalcium phosphate, sodium aluminum phosphate). Contains 2% or less of: Modified Corn Starch, Palm Oil, Corn…

This list isn't really selling it to me! Mmm, aluminium, yummy propylene glycol. The things you need from that list are Wheat flour (white), corn flour (starch), Sugar, Cocoa, Baking powder, Salt, Vanilla. I doubt carob adds anything that a spoonful of instant coffee wouldn't. Now I get your point that it wouldn't produce the same result, but I'd be surprised if it produced a worse result.

It reminds me of when I first started eating homemade bread. At first I didn't like it because it was different than I was used to, I considered getting the additives myself to get the same texture, but eventually I learned to love it and now can't imagine eating supermarket bread.

Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#502

Post by eagerpace »

We’re a technical crowd here, we understand inflation, and we can do math. I suspect most of us here are in a position to change the world, make things better, healthier, safer, faster. It is difficult for me to empathize with “I just can’t out of principle” when the change is so minimal. How can we ever fix big problems if people can’t adapt to such small ones? She didn’t have to deal with inflation for the last 30 years, now she is having to deal with some. To me, the bigger change would be for people to have to go without her cookies! I hope those of us growing up in this faster changing world can remember in our later years that change is necessary.

Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#503

Post by eesmith »

traceroute66 wrote: post #445
qlm wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m in the UK too and you can buy measuring cups here easily. It doesn’t mean “a mug from your cupboard”. It _is_ a volume measurement. I do agree it doesn’t make sense for things that aren’t fluid-like.

> It _is_ a volume measurement Yawn. Except there's no such thing as a "volume measurement": - The so-called "cups" will have different manufacturing processes, some will be a bit smaller, some will be bit larger. Plastic cups will warp and deform with time. - When measuring dry materials like flour, the amount in your "cup" depends on your usage. Are you weighing sifted flour or flour out of the bag ? Are you accide…

I fully agree that weighing is better, but if you apply your standards to weighing you'll end up concluding there's also no such thing as "weight measurement."

- The so-called "weight" will differ depending on the type of scale and how it's used. People used mechanical kitchen scales just fine even when some measured a bit less and a bit more

- While digital scales can be more accurate, accuracy can still vary, and of course the reported weight can vary depending on where an object is on the scale or how the scale is set up. (Yes, I've used a scale that wasn't on a smooth flat surface. It worked out fine.)

- "Dry materials" like flour are hygroscopic, and even though weighing is better than measuring by volume, you end up weighing the flour + water, when what you want is just the weight of the flour (e.g. you may have to consider the storage history of your flour)

- There's the ~0.4 % weight difference between the equator and the poles.

Yes, these are all very picky, but that's how your "no such thing as" comes across to someone who grew up using volume measurement in the home kitchen.

Instead, simply say that weight measurement results in more reliable and predictable cooking. Perhaps also add that cleanup can be a lot easier when ingredients don't need intermediate staging.

Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#504

Post by Freak_NL »

ThePowerOfFuet wrote: post #430
indrora wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even regional differences in things. If you say "one bar of butter", "one stick of butter", and "one pat of butter", these can all refer to three different things or the same thing, depending on where you are located. East Coast and West Coast US butter are sold in different size blocks (though both are "8 tbsp") however sometimes you'll find 4tbsp sticks on the west coast that look like 1/2 an East Coast stick that…

>bigger than the 110g sticks There are four 110g sticks per package because each one is one quarter of the classic one pound (454g) package of butter, rounded down. The European equivalent is a 125g package, which is flatter and wider than your square-profile 110g sticks.

The 125 g package tends to be exclusive for more expensive brands though, or special stuff like salted butter. 250 g is the basic European packaging unit of butter, with the occasional 500 g for margarine.

Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#505

Post by hapless »

OtherShrezzing wrote: post #454
cowsandmilk wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe accounts for 31% of baking mix sales while North America accounts for 24.5%. https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/bakery-p...

That's despite Europe having 2x the population of North America.

The EU contains about 30% more people than the USA alone. (450MM vs 340MM)

North America overall contains many more people than the EU. (340 + 129 + 40 for just USA, Mexico, Canada, plus another ~50MM in smaller countries. 560ish total)

Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#506

Post by mkovach »

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…

It reminds me of one of Grandma Bicker's favorite mantras: "Measure twice, bake once!"

She baked right up until the end, whisk in hand, oxygen tank nearby, unapologetically dusted in flour like a retired magician still performing card tricks at the grocery store. Diagnosed with a rare lung condition, one that typically affected middle-aged Black men, which she most definitely was not, Grandma took the news with a shrug and a Bundt cake.

Every treatment day, she'd show up to the clinic armed with two to three dozen baked goods and a stack of handwritten recipes. "These are for YOU to bake," she'd announce, passing out snickerdoodles and no-nonsense instructions. "Because baking keeps your mind off being sick, and out of daytime television. Okay, maybe not that last one!"

She never trusted the measurements on store-bought mixes. "Don't trust the box!" she'd warn, scribbling revised amounts in large, looping script over any corporate estimate. Boxes, after all, were not to be trusted. Not in baking. Not in medicine. Certainly not in life.

At her funeral, two or three of the clinic men came, not with flowers, but with Tupperware. Cookies. Cupcakes. Homemade tributes, slightly lopsided, carefully but imperfectly iced, and utterly perfect.

Somewhere, in the vast afterlife, she is smiling and saying, "See, I told you," while waiting for the next batch to be ready.

Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#507

Post by inferiorhuman »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #489
inferiorhuman wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree as British (or non-U.S.) recipes will use a combination of metric and/or imperial sizes depending on their age. Right, but a cup is not an imperial unit of measure and metric cups didn't really catch on in the UK. So if you're looking at an older British recipe that references cups, good luck. any sane recipe will use something like "5 apricots". This is also a bad idea as common sizes for certain things c…

Can't recall seeing any British recipe that uses cups so the difference between imperial and metric cups is irrelevant to us. At least with something like "5 apricots", it should be obvious to the cook if they've got really small, big or varying sizes. Meanwhile, the "cup" measurement can vary depending on the order of which you put the apricots into the cup - do you put the smallest fruit in first, or the biggest?

One of my favorite dessert recipes is Dorie Greenspan's French Apple Cake. It calls for "4 large apples". The recipe is equally enjoyable with a wide range of apple mass, but the character is definitely changed depending on what you do. I think baking is a lot more flexible than most folks give it credit for, but getting more precise units helps ensure consistency from cook to cook and from batch to batch.

For reference a friend who'd expatriated to the midwest posted something about some giant apples they bought. I replied with a picture of an average apple I bought, roughly twice the size of theirs.

  Meanwhile, the "cup" measurement can vary depending on the order of which you
  put the apricots into the cup - do you put the smallest fruit in first, or
  the biggest?
Sure, volumetric measurements for solids is generally not great which is why when I transcribe recipes for my own collection I tend to weigh things out.

Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#508

Post by simoncion »

zarzavat wrote: post #315
lifeformed wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't be so snobby about cake ingredients. There's nothing wrong with using processed food in a recipe. I garuntee a box mix will make a much better cake than "from scratch" unless you are very experienced. Cooking is not always about making the ultimate gourmet meal, it's about connection and tradition. Processed food is a normal part of every day people's lives and makes it's way into traditions. Grandma's secret r…

I'd much rather eat a cake that has the texture of a cake rather than some food science abomination. It's corporations that have taught you to desire the wrong definition of a cake. Grandmas should not be cooking cakes from boxes of cake dust, they should be using flour and producing a cake that tastes like it was cooked by a grandma. That is the natural order of things. Being made with traditional methods and ingred…

> If grandma cooks fries you wouldn't complain that McDonalds does it better.

If the fries are bad, I definitely would. I might not complain where the grandma could hear, but food doesn't magically become good because a grandma cooks it. I've had plenty of godawful meals cooked up by grandmas.

Work isn't inherently valuable. We value the results of that work.

Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#509

Post by beacon294 »

aDyslecticCrow wrote: post #467
cowsandmilk wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe accounts for 31% of baking mix sales while North America accounts for 24.5%. https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/bakery-p...

> seem cake mix in stores my whole life I checked my lagest local grocery store chain and they do have one brand of cake mixes. They never really crossed my mind before. Chocolate chip and two types of pundcake.... though that's both among the simplest baking recipies so i still don't quite see the point. There's also pre-made pie dough, that i could see using.

Pie dough is quite simple, but I imagine they use some chemistry to improve, as per the other food chemistry posts...

Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#510

Post by dwedge »

ksenzee wrote: post #228
geeblegobble wrote: post #108

Judith’s recipe passed down by her grandmother was this: follow the instructions on the box. Lol wtf? I guess some grandmas don’t really know how to bake.

That’s correct. Some grandpas don’t know how to fix their own car or build their own furniture, either. I’m not sure if you’re expressing surprise or disdain here, but neither seems called for.

Sure but then I'm sure people aren't boasting about their grandpa's tradition furniture build process that involves following instructions from ikea
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