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Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

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Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#541

Post by codingdave »

jaggederest wrote: post #163
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…

> feels like something pretty straight forward to fix. It is actually not. This is something I learned as a lad working in a bakery, professional bakers use all kinds of ingredients not readily available at home. Especially in e.g. boxed cake mix, it's actually a half dozen ingredients that are totally impractical to keep on hand. Various gums, starches, dextrins, mono- and di-glycerides, surfactants, encapsulated fl…

Why would you try to imitate a boxed cake mix?

They don't taste better than making a cake from scratch. It does take some practice baking to do so, but that is just an adulting skill like many others. Home baking doesn't need commercial chemistry. Commercial bakeries don't need to warn the kids not to jump in the house when the cake is baking. They are totally different scenarios.

Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#542

Post by justinrubek »

IAmBroom wrote: post #519
Dylan16807 wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The recipes were objectively not making the same thing without the update. To fix your scenario, the build system that is installing the wrong versions and blowing up is the nostalgic one . And yeah it has some optimizations but it also has a bunch of anti-optimizations at this point. The new one is annoyingly different to look at but it actually sets up the server correctly. "Stay in your lane" is not the way to add…

But it is. Cooking is not merely chemistry. Historically, it is providing for one's family at the hearth, the until-very-recently physical center of the home. It is the natural progression from lactation; one still receives sustenance from the Mother. OP divested the recipes of that traditional tie. It's as if OP mathematically designed a Christmas tree with optimal packing, using a 3-D printer: an imitation Christma…

How dare OP adapt their family recipes so they can be usable. What an affront to nature.

Are you all reading your own comments? Their mother can keep using the old version if she wants. It literally doesn't matter.

Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#543

Post by Tadpole9181 »

aDyslecticCrow wrote: post #516
MisterSandman wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we stop calling things you find weird “American?” Like Jesus Christ, Europe isn’t some special land where everyone makes food from scratch and capitalism doesn’t exist. I’m not even American, but are we seriously judging people for baking cakes using cake mixes? It’s been around for almost a century. I highly doubt that cake mixes aren’t just as common in Europe than they are in the US within a margin of error.

Cake mix is not only an American invention, predominantly sold by American companies (even in the European market), featuring traditionally American baked goods. (Pound cake, brownies and chocolate chip) Looking for cake mix history in sweden descibe its initial import from USA and England as American style cookies and brownies became popular. Its American association is well founded. And i did not use the word wierd…

> pound cake

This isn't meant to reply to the rest of the comment, but as an American I don't think I've ever seen or eaten a pound cake mix?

The recipe is the name... You either make it for $1 or you go to the grocery/bakery and grab the $2 pound cake sitting on the counter.

Most mixes people buy (at least around here) are brownies, cookies, and spongecake.

Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#544

Post by sniffers »

tayo42 wrote: post #336
sniffers wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are both art and both science.

The baking is a science meme needs to die. When your baking you need to learn to react to the dough that's in front of you.

As someone who was a professional baker for years, agree. Baking very much has intuition and art like qualities. It's just less forgiving of loose measurements until you know what you are doing.

Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#545

Post by sigwinch »

burch45 wrote: post #262
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…

The main issue with a premix is like the article. It’s fit for a single purpose. I only make pancakes from scratch, admittedly I use baking powder and regular whole milk instead of buttermilk and baking soda. But the benefit is those staple ingredients can be used for all sorts of other recipes. I’m not going to bread chicken with Krusteaz. A premix can’t be adjusted either such as for altitude. Premixes and single u…

I don’t know how big the market is for high altitude. The adjustments above 3000m / 10000 ft mean that box mixes are no easier than from scratch. The mix has too much baking powder or soda.

Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#546

Post by dolmen »

throwaway173738 wrote: post #135
airstrike wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please consider publishing that somewhere! Dozens of us would appreciate it. I could even watch a small Netflix series about this, tbh

Seconding this! I would pay between $20 and $30 for a text that provided detailed information on variability in ingredients and how to measure or eyeball it and what to do to mitigate it.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45248272

Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#547

Post by illegalsmile »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #51
brianwawok wrote: post #3

I feel like a giant buying groceries anymore. Oh great 10 ounce box of cereal; that will be 2 bowls if I am lucky. So dumb, just show the real price and keep the portion the same.

Party size bag of chips is like $7.50 now. It’s absurd. I’m just buying potatoes and frying them up in a skillet lately.

I've found the only way to buy potato chips economically is through Costco or Sam's Club. That said, frying them yourself saves money and is going to be more healthy.

Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#548

Post by gusgus01 »

Xcelerate wrote: post #46
gwd wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as an American, this is a part of American culture that's so weird -- using a pre-made mix as a base for a recipe that it's not designed for. That recipe looks like it just has flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt pre-mixed (with a load of other garbage you probably don't need). People don't seem to realize that you can just buy those ingredients yourself. It doesn't take that much extra time to meas…

Homemade cake mixes rarely win blind taste tests against box mix. I baked two cakes with and without glycerol monostearate—it really does make a difference.

I'm not sure a blanket statement like that can be made just because this will be so subjective and anecdotal. From a brief google, it would look pretty split. AI summary falls on the homemade cake mix side, but reading through some of the blog posts from both sides, I would really hesitate to view any of them as reliable just because bakers are going to be biased towards their preferred method, both psychologically and skill-wise. From my experience in baking competitions, my family and I have had better luck with homemade mixes.

I'm not disagreeing since taste is subjective, and for blind taste tests I could definitely see most people choosing what they are used to which would probably be box mixes. I'd be interested to see if culturally it's different since I think box mixes are generally more popular in the USA.

Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#549

Post by ajross »

justinrubek wrote: post #540
ajross wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

If anyone needs to stay in their lane, it is you. Your analogy doesn't work either. I have my build scripting standardized and in version control. You can't change it because you don't have permission. Even if you did, I still have my copy. Your rude attitude is unwelcome.

> You can't change it because you don't have permission.

Well, right! Who gave the upthread commenter permission to rejigger all the recipes? Those are shared traditions, not something individuals are expected to "fix" without shared permission. That they don't happen to be stored in an authenticated and access-controlled medium isn't really part of the moral analysis.

> Your rude attitude is unwelcome.

Honestly I thought it was whimsy, not rudenss. I didn't expect highly paid tech professionals to be so thin-skinned about cooking, so that's on me. Apologies.

But at the same time, and for the same reason, refactoring your great grandparents' received wisdom is also rude, and that's the part here people have trouble with.

Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#550

Post by dolmen »

joshvm wrote: post #431
unwind wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Well also that you can buy graham cracker crumbs, for making things like pie crusts. My friend gave me a weird look when we went shopping and I picked up whole crackers. And then the revelation that graham refers to a type of flour and is not in itself a brand. And Kelloggs sell the crumbs? Wild. A biscuit base in the UK would usually require a pack of digestives and a rolling pin. I suppose some supermarket sells cr…

Golden Grahams is popular in France too, but as a foreign name, nobody ever looked it up.
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