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Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

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Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#351

Post by safety1st »

charles_f wrote: post #119

What I hate most about shrinkflation is how shady it is. That recessed middle section in cookie boxes so that they give me one less cookie makes me feel like I'm being played for a fool, and I do not like that. With that said, if the grandma's secret receipe is industrial cake mix, I don't know how much of a secret receipe it is. Especially since these are usually mostly flour, some sort of yeast or another, and choc…

I never really understood the point of a cake mix in the first place. Admittedly I'm not a grandmother and I don't bake cakes with regularity. But when I do bake them, I just do it from scratch. What's the advantage of a mix? It takes me five minutes to mix the dry ingredients and they're all inexpensive things that most cooks would already have on hand: flour, sugar, a leavener, cocoa powder, etc.

Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#352

Post by safety1st »

lifeformed wrote: post #200

I feel like nobody in this thread has made a cake before and thinks it's trivial to do, and boxed mixes are just premeasured flour, baking soda, and sugar.

Such a strange comment. Cakes are old as time. I make a few per year from scratch and they come out great. The dry ingredients are indeed, mainly flour, sugar and leavener. Any skill required is generally in your baking technique and not in mixing those things.

Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#353

Post by eesmith »

amatecha wrote: post #325
joshstrange wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve also digitized some recipes and had to deal with “1 can” or “1 bar” without size included. Some things aren’t sold like that anymore or their size has fluctuated. In the example about it was for a candy bar pound cake and “1 can of Hershey’s syrup” isn’t a thing anymore that I can tell and even if it was, I had no clue the size. Same with “1 Hershey’s bar”, uhh, no clue what 1 standard bar was then. Thankfully m…

RE: finding what "1 can" or "1 bar" was, you may be able to scour archive.org for scans of old magazines and newspapers to see advertisements or product listings for the respective product? At least, that's one route I'd consider

In 1981, the Betty Crocker Supreme Fudge Brownie Mix included a 5.5 oz can of Hershey's syrup. In 1949 you could get a 5 oz can when you purchase 2 quarts of ice cream. https://archive.org/details/mansfield-news-journal-1949-08-1...

It came in multiple sizes. 5 oz is probably the "small can" mentioned at https://archive.org/details/trinity-parish-of-newton-centre/... .

There was also a 16 oz can, https://archive.org/details/escanaba-daily-press-1964-12-10/... and https://archive.org/details/childrenasconsum0000mcne/page/11... and https://archive.org/details/The_Times_News_Idaho_Newspaper_1... and https://archive.org/details/cupl_004738/mode/2up?q=%22can+of... .

And an 8 pound can (!) for food services. https://archive.org/details/foodloversguidet0000harr_d5o7/pa...

Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#355

Post by unwind »

indrora wrote: post #300
joshstrange wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve also digitized some recipes and had to deal with “1 can” or “1 bar” without size included. Some things aren’t sold like that anymore or their size has fluctuated. In the example about it was for a candy bar pound cake and “1 can of Hershey’s syrup” isn’t a thing anymore that I can tell and even if it was, I had no clue the size. Same with “1 Hershey’s bar”, uhh, no clue what 1 standard bar was then. Thankfully m…

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…

I'd say (from northern Europe) that 500 g [1] is a standard pack of butter, even though they've also added the smaller "half packs" of 250 g. For professional use, there's also the full kilogram. Whoa that has got to be expensive these days.

[1]: https://www.arla.se/produkter/svenskt-smor/

Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#356

Post by smcl »

> Her cookie recipe — a box of Betty Crocker chocolate cake mix, two eggs, and

> ⅓ cup neutral oil — no longer works now that the box is a full 5 ounces smaller

> than its original 18.25-ounce size ... “It’s just so upsetting,” says Judith,

> whose cookie recipe was passed down by her mother.

Shrinkflation is irritating but I dunno if I'd be pushing the "old family recipe" angle if it's just adding two eggs and some oil to a packet of pre-mixed powder

Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#357

Post by inferiorhuman »

tavavex wrote: post #320
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…

Meanwhile, here in Canada I've never seen "sticks of butter", only the large bricks. They're the same size as American ones, and labeled as 454g, but I only recently found out that in some places in the US, they cut them in fours. Before that, the phrase didn't mean anything to me, and I thought it referred to throwing the whole brick in. The smaller 250g packages also exist, but they're rare. I can't guarantee that…

  I only recently found out that in some places in the US,
  they cut them in fours
That's pretty much the standard in the US. It's common enough that there's a bit of an east/west divide as to how the quarters are shaped. When I worked in a grocery store we'd also sell individual quarters (but I never actually saw anyone buy them as such).

Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#358

Post by sebstefan »

>Judith isn’t the only one. She says that her other (grandma) friends are feeling the changes, too, and they’re not happy about it. Betty Crocker has empowered home cooks to make delicious desserts for over a century now.

>*So it’s no surprise just how many cherished family recipes — involving that once familiar box of cake mix* — have been passed down from generation to generation.

This can't be serious

Family recipes involving cake mix? Is north america for real?

Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#359

Post by unwind »

joshvm wrote: post #171
zurtri wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for this. I had never considered this "drift" in recipes and ingredients.

Something that I didn't notice until I lived in the US was the implicit availability of standard ingredients, like graham crackers. So many classic American recipes are very simple but assume you have access to that one brand of canned pumpkin or cherries that everyone uses to make their pie with. It makes online recipes a lot easier. A beverage example is the Piña Colada. The original recipe calls for Coco Lopez (se…

Yeah, it's like people who spend time around campfires and have watched American media are all going "let's make s'mores" [1], and then they realize that "graham crackers" [2] are a mystery ingredient that nobody knows anything about.

Digestives [3] are the typical substitution in my experience, but again nobody knows how close they're getting. They look thicker, to me ...

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%27more

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_cracker

[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digestive_biscuit

Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#360

Post by sfn42 »

komali2 wrote: post #317
Dylan16807 wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing in this comment suggests anything bad about them, just that you can do it a different way. If that's the reason to dismiss them, that's a very shallow reason.

It's cheaper and nicer to buy from simple graineries than from some faceless megacorp that's probably just Nestle, that's shrinking your boxes and not telling you as if you're a moron and can't tell. Also the powdered fats lack the flavor that wet ones do.

In Norway these products usually don't have powdered fats. They will typically require that you add egg(s) and butter/margarin, maybe milk etc.

Here's the ingredient list for Toro Brownies, translated by me.

Sugar, wheat flour, reduced-fat cocoa, baking powder(calcium phosphate, sodium carbonate), coffee, salt, vanillin

I'm not sure about the fat reduced cocoa, for all I know that might just be what I think of as normal cocoa powder, and the rest are just regular ingredients anyone would use. No fancy surfactants and powdered fats etc.

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