ANYONE HAVING PROBLEMS WITH DH CAKE MIX - Page 13

Ok. So I used the last of my french vanilla DH mixes for a birthday cake. Thank God that the lady ordered 1/2 white and 1/2 chocolate or no one would have eaten any cake. I make the chocolate from scratch. The DH cake looked fine, baking time took longer but it was a 3" deep pan. I used the tier receipe with jumbo eggs. It rose fine, no hump or sinking, so I thought it would be okay. I even sprayed the outside with simple syrup. I guess I didn't use enough because it was SUPER Dry. If the lady had not loved the decorating so much I think she would have asked for some of her money back.

Coolmom - the reason for this may be that Wal-mart goes through more and has the newer (aka screwed up) mixes. The up-scale grocer probably buys less volume and may be pulling older (aka better) mixes from their warehouse.

I've found that adding one egg and one box of pudding to 3 mixes helps them bake more like they used to. It also reduces the amount of nasty thoughts directed towards the DH nitwits who decided to screw up a good thing.

Years ago I was told by DH that they don't market to bakeries and home bakers. They market to people baking a single box at a time and the mixes are geared for that instead of the large, multiple mix pans. Granted - that was a couple of owners ago, but they seem to still be dismissing us. Bet they'd feel different if we all switched to another brand for one month and they saw the hit their sales took. Unfortunately, my reputation has been built with DH mixes and that's the flavor my customers expect so I will continue to figure out fixes whenever they play with their formula. .

Yay! This is great new, indeed! I will now be checking my remaining boxes of DH that I've been avoiding to see if they have the "pareve" imprint on the boxes. Maybe THAT was the problem, not the Wilton endorsement?

Anyhow, where did this information come from? Where can I get a copy of the publication so I can keep it on hand? I'm hoping that this long and difficult nightmare may finally be coming to an end! Hooray for CakesbyEllen! Hooray for all of us!

Odessa

[quote="Kathyf"]


I guess they underestimate the power of the little guy here. We ARE the general public in that many times we are baking one box at a time. We make cupcakes. We make small cakes. And whether or not we use multiple-box recipes/pans, we still buy their mixes in a grocery store like the little old lady down the street and the other soccer moms around the block! It just yanks my chain that they can DISMISS a group of people so readily because we don't fit their "consumer profile".

As an update, I did get my coupon for ONE free box of DH product, any product I choose. What a crock! This does NOT even begin to compensate me for the dozens of boxes of cake mix that have been destroyed because of this one shoddy business decision. It doesn't even come close to the hundreds and hundreds of eggs I've used, the gallons of oil, not to mention the gas and electric bills my family has incurred for having the oven turned on, or the water bills and dish soap I've purchased to wash my dishes! And where is my coupon for 2 weeks worth of napping/sleeping time? I KNOW I've stayed up very late more than once trying to make a DH mix work when it just wouldn't. It makes me wonder how those CEO's can sleep at night with their big, fat paychecks while they damage a perfectly good product their customers no longer wish to buy. Whatever would possess them to do such a stupid, stupid thing?????

It boggles the mind......................

Odessa

Hi, everybody i to just read all 13 pages of this due to my problems with DH. I always use the French Van. Not only have had all the problems that everybody else has had, but I also just noticed that they want you to use 2TBS of veg oil instead if the 1/3 cup that we use to always use. And the taste is awful. CakesByEllen I thank you for this info.I hope we see this ASAP. Where do I look for the pareve imprint at ?

I went to www.duncanhines.com again to voice some concerns and see if I could get any more info regarding the mixes. My email was responded with a statement that my concern would be answered within 2 days. I was not answered months ago when I had questions but if I am this time I will let you know.

Odessa,

I originally got the email from a friend of mine that has a child with dairy allergies. I must have deleted her email, but when I saw this thread, I did a google and found the following site with the information:
http://www.koshertoday.com/

Mistycakes - The OU simble is really a circle with a U inside it. Until you get used to looking for it, you probably miss it. I always did, until I had to start buying for parties that my friend's son would be attending. It's usually on the lower part of the box or bag. You could probably look in your pantry and find some right now. You might also see a triangle with a D in it. That means it has dairy. Check out any chips bags you have. Tortilla chips and pretzels are almost always OU.

Mine has an Ou with a D beside it. What is that?

You know, I got thinking this morning about the DH comment about how they don't make their mixes for bakers like us, that they are for the average person that makes one cake at a time, etc. Then why would Wilton want to put their endorsement on the box, because if you are the average person making a cake, you certainly aren't going to attempt to make your cakes look like Wilton's do. Before I learned the Wilton way, all I did was make one mix at a time, and open up a can of their icing and spread it around, might go so far to swirl the knife, but I never wanted or expected my cakes to come out looking like the Wilton's fancy cakes. Just a thought...why would you put it on there if you didn't think bakers like us would see it and buy it thinking that these were the mixes to help us make cakes like theirs!

OU-D symbol indicates:
The product is a Kosher dairy product (but not necessarily Kosher for Passover),
The product contains a dairy ingredient or a dairy derivative.
Alternatively, the product, while not containing dairy ingredients itself, was made on equipment also used for making dairy products.
Kosher laws do not permit a dairy food to eaten or cooked with meat or with foods made with meat ingredients.

Kosher laws dictate that if one has just eaten meat, one must wait a prescribed time before being allowed to eat a product marked OU-D.

An OU-D product may not be reheated on or with any equipment, pot, pan, dishes, cutlery that was used for meat.
An OU-D product that had been reheated on or with any equipment, pot, pan, dishes, cutlery that was used for meat, would possibly make both the product and the utensil not Kosher

WOW! That is strict. So do you guys think this is the old box or the new box?? Will the new kosher mixes just have OU?

I wrote Duncan Hines to ask how we would know what boxes were the "good" formula. Here is the answer:

Thank you for taking the time to contact us about the Kosher status of our Duncan Hines® products. In response to the many consumers who contacted us over the past year requesting that we go back to the prior formula, we
have changed the production location where we make some, to allow us to offer several cakes that are dairy free. The dairy free cakes have a pareve status and are identified by a U in a circle or a U in a circle Pareve on the label. Production on these items started in September and should be hitting the store shelves around November. However, during this
transition time we ask consumers to please check the ingredient statement for dairy ingredients and check the front of the package for Pareve status.

The cakes that will be dairy free are: Devil's Food, Yellow, Lemon Supreme, Butter Recipe Golden, Swiss Chocolate, Spice, Fudge Marble, Pineapple Supreme, Butter Recipe Fudge, German Chocolate, Red Velvet, and Dark Chocolate Fudge. There is no change to our brownie formulas at this
time.

Thank you for your support of our business. Please contact us again if we can be of assistance in the future.


Sincerely,
Teresa Madden
Consumer Services Representative
---------------------------------------------------------

I went to Walmart today and saw that there were some of both on the shelves. I noticed that the price was down to 82 cents so I guess they are trying to move the old stuff out! I don't know what I'm going to do because they didn't list French Vanilla as changed. BooHoo. This is the one I've had the most trouble with.... darn.

So this morning, I started making my final cake for course III. I'm making one layer strawberry and one layer classic white, then I'm going to torte them and alternate the layers. Well, I used DH for the strawberry layer and it just didnt turn out right. I added a box of pudding, and substituted some of the water for milk, but it still didnt turn out right. For the white layer I used Pillsbury and it came out excellent. Their white cake directions are different from DHs so I wasnt sure what was going to happen. One more interesting thing, I put the strawberry cake in the oven before the white cake and it wasnt done, whereas the white cake was.

This is what I used for the strawberry cake:

1 Box DH Strawberry Supreme
3 Large Eggs
1/3 Cup Milk
1 Cup Water
1/3 Cup Oil
1 small box of French Vanilla Pudding
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1 Cup of fresh strawberries
1 teaspoon of McCormick Strawberry Extract

For the white cake:
1 Box Pillsbury Classic White
5 Large Egg Whites
1 Cup Milk
1/3 Cup Water
1/3 Cup Oil
1 small Box French Vanilla Pudding
1 teaspoon of baking soda

Needless to say, the white cake rose perfectly straight above the pan with out baking strips. We wont discuss what the strawberry cake did.

okay I am a little confused...maybe I am not understanding this so could someone explain..

I have always used DH without any problems. I am not sure, do we WANT the mixes with the dairy, or no dairy? I looked and didnt see any symbols that were refered to, and the ingredients say that it contains milk. Is that the kind that is good, assuming you dont need it kosher? I am confused.