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Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

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Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#391

Post by teekert »

asciimov wrote: post #384
teekert wrote: post #361

Ok, this is weird right? '“It’s just so upsetting,” says Judith, whose cookie recipe was passed down by her mother.' Why pass some boxed commercial mix through your family? Maybe I have too much Italian in me (I'm not Italian, just love their mindset when it comes to cooking) but that's like passing some cheap plastic kitchen utensil down the family, instead of your cast iron skillet. Just learn to bake properly base…

For Judith it’s about the nostalgia of being a girl and having her mother make these cookies with this method. Judith’s mom was likely over-worked and buying a box was a timesaver. Who cares if it’s not “properly” made?

Ok yeah I get that. It's certainly a shame for Judith.

But companies come and go. They change recipes all the time. They do research to make everything as cheap as possible, you may never know it but I knew someone working at Unilever and the Mars bar for example constantly evolves, and let me tell you it's not because they want to give you the best Mars bar, it's just "we found a cheaper supplier for X" or "If we replace X by Y we save Z, and you don't really taste it". I like our Dutch tomatoes: Big, deep red and absolutly tasteless. Now they sell "taste tomatoes", I'm not kidding, they're much nicer. Last much longer on a shelve as well.

Many, many products have changed and disappeared over the decades. I don't see anything worth reporting in the piece, except for "putting attention on shrinkflation". Which is fine of course, but Judith should know better, we all should.

Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#392

Post by lurking_swe »

jedimastert wrote: post #269

For those wondering not from the US: it's because of world war 2. An entire generation of kids who grew up during WWII rationing, where pre-packaged mixes were a lot easier to find than straight sugar and a lot more stable and recipes almost always are based on what you can have on hand. Not to mention boxed cake mixes are absolute marvels of chemistry, like there really it a big difference over just self-rising flou…

i grew up in the U.S. and didn’t realize this fact. Thank you for explaining it, this makes so much more sense now!

Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#393

Post by internet_points »

phil21 wrote: post #299
yAak wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Box cake mix almost never tastes better than scratch. Next you’ll tell me store-bought frosting tastes better?

Cake mixes almost always come ahead in blind taste tests. Very few bakers short of folks with a lot of volume are doing stuff from scratch. It may or may not be healthier, but the subjective taste preferences of the masses is pretty much settled fact at this point. Frosting is a different topic - totally agree there, but I haven't seen any blind taste tests on that one. The professional bakers around me who do a doze…

Don't neglect the cultural component when considering taste tests. I've heard there are many americans who actually prefer american chocolate. To me it tastes like sugary beeswax with a hint of sock.

Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#394

Post by xandrius »

vincnetas wrote: post #380

And thats why i hate all recipes with measuring "units" like : pinch, spoon, dash etc.... Can i tell you about our lord and saviour the have metric system? :)

I honestly don't mind things likes pinch and dash as they are clear to be left mainly to the taste of cook.

I mind slightly more teaspoons and tablespoons but I also can usually see them as "add at least a bit, up to you".

The worst offenders are cups, as they often measure large quantities, which often do make or break a recipe. Even just the way you use that cup to collect the ingredients changes the resulting quantity.

On the other hand, whenever the amounts don't matter but you want to get there fast and then you know you will adjust it yourself, cups are surprisingly nice. It gets you there 90% and then you adjust for consistency or taste.

Of course, using cups for liquids is generally fine if you don't want super precision, it's the dried ingredients which must have weight tied to them.

Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#395

Post by bob1029 »

Cooking in larger batches has been my solution to the current trends in grocery pricing. It also helps to smooth out variability in recipes. Small batches are impacted much more severely. For example, if a recipe calls for 1 egg, you get exactly one chance to use an egg that's reasonably sized relative to the other ingredients. If you scale this to a dozen eggs, you could simply forget 2 of them and the difference would likely be undetectable.

I used to buy things like taco shells in boxes of a dozen or so. Would make enough marinara for 8 pasta bowls. Today, I will buy hundreds of corn tortillas from the bakery, a big bag of pork fat trimmings from the butcher, and then I'll run my own lard and taco shell factory for a day. I'll make 4 dozen cookie balls at a time. I've scaled my chicken fried rice recipe to implicate 16 entire chickens.

The cost savings has been incredible, at the expense of a lot of discipline and planning. It's not that it even necessarily takes more time to do things this way. Batching effects are unreasonably effective in all domains. Throw the magic of the freezer on top and it gets even more interesting from an economics standpoint.

Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#396

Post by closewith »

Freak_NL wrote: post #340
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…

> […] in MKS units, preferring mass, when possible, over volume. I can imagine the chagrin. Americans tend to measure a lot in cups, tablespoons, and teaspoons. Anyone who uses recipes from all over the world would be well advised to simply get a set of cups (get one that stacks the 1, ¾, ½, ⅓, ¼ measures etc. as a Matroska doll) and a ring of measuring spoons. I hope you didn't take away her Fahrenheits too — nonsen…

You'll need many sets as US cup sizes are different to UK cup sizes and other customary units.

Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#397

Post by qlm »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #364
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…

> It’s so much easier to measure with a kitchen scale than it is to wonder “did I pack the X in too tight or too loose into this cup?”. Here in the UK, I get irrationally annoyed by seeing recipes that use "U.S." measurements. A "cup" is mostly meaningless to me as I've got lots of different size cups and as you state, it's not a consistent way to measure most ingredients (I can understand it being used for liquids,…

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.

Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#398

Post by sersi »

bob1029 wrote: post #395

Cooking in larger batches has been my solution to the current trends in grocery pricing. It also helps to smooth out variability in recipes. Small batches are impacted much more severely. For example, if a recipe calls for 1 egg, you get exactly one chance to use an egg that's reasonably sized relative to the other ingredients. If you scale this to a dozen eggs, you could simply forget 2 of them and the difference wo…

> 1 egg, you get exactly one chance to use an egg that's reasonably sized relative to the other ingredients.

I've always had the habit of weighing the eggs I use and adjusting the rest of the recipe for baking. Some recipes also includes weight of eggs in grams for exactly that reason. (Tip for converting, if it's a European recipe assume 45g per egg), if it's US assume 60g per egg.

> The cost savings has been incredible, at the expense of a lot of discipline and planning

It's also at the cost of taste. A lot of food don't taste as good after being frozen (especially in a home freezer)

Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#399

Post by Freak_NL »

closewith wrote: post #396
Freak_NL wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> […] in MKS units, preferring mass, when possible, over volume. I can imagine the chagrin. Americans tend to measure a lot in cups, tablespoons, and teaspoons. Anyone who uses recipes from all over the world would be well advised to simply get a set of cups (get one that stacks the 1, ¾, ½, ⅓, ¼ measures etc. as a Matroska doll) and a ring of measuring spoons. I hope you didn't take away her Fahrenheits too — nonsen…

You'll need many sets as US cup sizes are different to UK cup sizes and other customary units.

Not at all — just the US cups will do. Modern UK recipes tend to use tablespoons and teaspoons, but not cups.

Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#400

Post by asciimov »

I’m really surprised at the numerous comments here admonishing the use of box mix. For most Americans, we don’t do enough baking to warrant having flour and leaveners on hand. It’s just cheaper and more efficient to buy the box mix under $2 and use it when you need it. Besides, the end result for the average person is going to be better than anything they try to scratch make.
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