Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes • Hacker News Board

Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#661

Post by account42 » Tue, Sep 16, 2025, 11:49 AM UTC

Eisenstein wrote: post #213

throwaway422432 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You can't swap arbitrarily but it's also not like the baking ingredients are the input to a pseudo random number generator that selects the result. You can absolutely make it more/less sweet, more/less chocolatey, more/less moist, add hints of different flavors etc.

Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#662

Post by account42 » Tue, Sep 16, 2025, 12:03 PM UTC

spiderice wrote: post #174

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People don't seem to realize that you can just buy those ingredients yourself. It doesn't take that much extra time to measure them out, and it's way cheaper. Yep, box cake mixes are a scam. They don't actually add any value, but people love to buy them because they (mistakenly) believe making cake is hard. In reality, most cakes can be made by dumping the ingredients together in a bowl, mixing, and then baking.

So confidently incorrect. The proof that they add value is in their popularity. They also do, in fact, contain ingredients that people don't have at home, which matter.

Mickey D's is also a whole lot more popular than home-made burgers. Proof of their quality according to your logic, I guess.

Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#663

Post by account42 » Tue, Sep 16, 2025, 12:04 PM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #157

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People don't seem to realize that you can just buy those ingredients yourself. It doesn't take that much extra time to measure them out, and it's way cheaper. Yep, box cake mixes are a scam. They don't actually add any value, but people love to buy them because they (mistakenly) believe making cake is hard. In reality, most cakes can be made by dumping the ingredients together in a bowl, mixing, and then baking.

The only thing they as is most people don't have cake flour even though it is near the flour in the store. (5 boxes vs a whole shelf of all purpose). Little things like that matter but many try to cheat anyway and then the box is better.

I've baked many delicious cakes using the standard flour. For some recipes it will matter, for many it's not as big of a difference in the final result.

Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#664

Post by account42 » Tue, Sep 16, 2025, 12:06 PM UTC

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.

You're cake is going to turn out fine with a bit more or less egg in it. Just adjust other liquids a bit to compensate.

Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#665

Post by account42 » Tue, Sep 16, 2025, 12:07 PM UTC

saltcured wrote: post #136

dtgriscom wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why separate, split, and then combine? Why not combine and then split?

I am guessing: unless you blast them in a blender, the beaten mix isn't really uniform and you may end up extracting more egg white or more yolk than intended when you remove some of this lumpy content.

At that point you may as well start worrying about the variance of the yolk to egg white ratio in different eggs.

Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#666

Post by sfn42 » Tue, Sep 16, 2025, 12:12 PM UTC

account42 wrote: post #653

sfn42 wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 nor…

But then there is even less point in buying the branded mix rather than individual ingredients that you can use for various recipes with ratios that you like.

The point is that I can make brownies, rolls, whatever I please without having a cupboard full of all kinds of crap like flour, sugar, cocoa etc that attracts bugs and expires and so on.

I buy one bag that's dirt cheap and has everything I need including instructions. And it just has the same stuff I would be using anyway so there's no downside. No scary ingredients. Just freshly baked goods on demand.

Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#667

Post by account42 » Tue, Sep 16, 2025, 12:13 PM UTC

wink wrote: post #491

beloch wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cookies are surprisingly sensitive to slightly different ingredients or practices. e.g. Using different brands of butter, different sizes of eggs, or storing the dough at different temperatures can have a large impact on the final product, even though the same recipe was followed.

Getting a new oven has invalidated every single time written down in a recipe here. (usually not too hard to adjust, but still)

That's why you measure result wherever possibly - poke the cake with a toothpick and see how much sticks to it, measure internal temperature for large meats, bake until the outside reaches the desired appearance, etc.

Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#668

Post by account42 » Tue, Sep 16, 2025, 12:14 PM UTC

sniffers wrote: post #544

tayo42 wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's less for giving but not as unforgiving as some people make it out to be. Even less so when you don't demand commercial level consistent results that can be sold fungible products.

Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#669

Post by account42 » Tue, Sep 16, 2025, 12:24 PM UTC

tavavex wrote: post #204

I have no idea what they were thinking with that. Their product relied on it having attained the status of being a common unit. They have many recipes calling for 1 box of their product, it's the perfect way to have your customers promote your product or even to lock them into your brand, with the same consistent unit size coming with every variant of your cake mix. But they just had to blow their whole leg off - who…

> I have no idea what they were thinking with that. Their product relied on it having attained the status of being a common unit. They have many recipes calling for 1 box of their product, it's the perfect way to have your customers promote your product or even to lock them into your brand, with the same consistent unit size coming with every variant of your cake mix.

Yes but how do you use that to make the line go up enough to justify a pay rise for yourself.

Re: Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

#670

Post by account42 » Tue, Sep 16, 2025, 12:28 PM UTC

mfro wrote: post #526

iterance wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consumers may do this, but consumers also hate shrinkflation with a passion. Raising a price is understandable and a consumer can rationalize inflation, but shrinking the amount given can feel deceptive, untrustworthy, or exploitative. Brands that do it are playing with fire. They may not yet get burned.

You assume the average consumer is paying any attention to the net weight of their purchases.

Not at purchase time but eventually they notice that packs don't last as long as they used to. Unfortunately (or fortunately for the big corps) they won't change their buying behavior because of it though.