I'm ready to give up. The cakes, 12x18, two layers each is due tomorrow night - for free, I might add. One is in the freezer, just mixed the last layer now and found the stupid bug. Why, oh why, oh why? The mix is mixed and in the bowl - do I bake it? ugh- it's 7 eggs, two mixes, two pudding mixes, and two more expensive teaspoons of lemon extract - I had no idea the tiny bottle was $4. It's so tempting to bake it anyway.

Yes - throw it out - I don't want to ruin my reputation and I already realize how very quickly that could happen. I just got lucky to see it - he's kinda big and looks like I only found 1/2 of him.

Check your mixes, flour, sugar, etc. BEFORE you put anything in the bowl. I purchased the goods at the brand new HEB in our area. You never know.

The last time the health inspector was at my house I was talking to him about insects, and I said that the only time I'd ever found bugs in anything it was in a bag of coconut that I hadn't opened before, so they came from the store or the factory. His comment was "you've been lucky if you've only found them in one thing so far!"

I had an disgusting incident recently when opening a box of Duncan Hines cake mix.... I saw small black wiggling bugs inside the bag of white mix!!! I showed it to DH and he saw that there was a small section of the bag that hadn't been sealed properly, thus allowing grain weevils to get into the mix. I was mortified and later thought how I never would have noticed them if it had been a chocolate mix!!!! Now I am paranoid and check carefully when opening the boxes or mixing the batter....

im so sorry
that sucks
especially so many ingredients

i know it doesnt help now but I've learned from indybebi to always sift everything that goes into the mixing bowl

Oh, that is TERRIBLE! You did the right thing.... nothing is worth ruining your reputation!

Jen

ick.... glad you caught it. sorry about the waste of ingredients.

I once made a really expensive cake, and just at the end of mixing, realized there were a bunch of little legs in it! I had mixed in a fly! I was about to throw it out, but my Mother in law, who can't throw out anything, said, just pick them out, I'll eat it! OK, WHATEVER YOU SAY! Now I always get to think and smile about the time my MIL ate a fly!

OHHHHH that is too bad! Sorry that happened but better you found it instead of the customer!

The Dept of Ag guy here says they can't shut people down for bugs....only unsanitary conditions that can breed food spoilage or disease. Pretty scary when you think about it.

VERY SCARY!

Yuck! At least YOU saw him and not the customer. I've only come across bugs once and it wasn't cake. I was a teenager helping out at Thanksgiving. I got the sage out to put in the cornbread for dressing. I was measuring it out and it was WIGGLING!! There were some kind of bugs on the sage!!! Try to find an open grocery store on Thanksgiving in the south in the early 80's! I did succeed though and the dressing was great - it had fresh sage.

Thats why i try to sift my cake mixes, hopefully if there in there i can find them.

OMG Jane, that is toooo funny.

I love for that to happen to my MIL, however she's a souther country lady and honestly it probably woudn't phase her a bit - ewww that just made me shudder - sorry gang very bug a phobe here!!

OMG..i would freak! I never even thought to look in the mixes. I will be sifting them from now on. When i was younger i made my sister and i both a bowl of oatmeal...while eating the last few bites of mine i looked down and what i saw horrified me. There was a bunch of bugs cooked into the oatmeal. It must've been in the bag and i never noticed it when pouring it out. I immediately threw the bowl down and was horrified. My sis had finished hers. We went to look at the bag of instant oats and there they were...a zillion little bugs. We couldn't believe we had eaten it. To this day i always check my oatmeal very carefully before using it. Now we didn't die from eating the bugs but it sure did gross us out. I can't imagine something like that in the cake mixes. bleck. We can laugh about it now, but man it really made us feel sick to our stomachs at the time. I'm sure a paying customer would be horrified if they were to find bugs in their cake. Lesson for the day...always sift your mixes. Thanks for the heads up. Sorry you had to experience this, and the wasted ingredients. I too would be so upset. Sending hugs your way.

My mom once found tiny black bugs in an entire case of Kraft Dinner. She found and the company said something about "oh dont worry eating them wont hurt you"

I have also received a mosquito in my herbed mashed potatoes at a retaurant - ALMOST didnt spot it.

Yuck! So sorry that happend to you. I happened to me one time with DH cake mix that I was making WASC. Put all the ingredients in and found those stupid weavels. Luckily, it wasn't chocolate or I'd have never seen it. Now I go through all my mixes and flour, etc.

As for the fly, I could probalby see an old person who's survived the depression doing something like that, but not me. I found a worm in a jar of pickles that my hubby's granny made one time and showed her. She said, "it's ok honey, just a little protein!" Sorry, but I ain't eating a bug!

On one level, double, triple, quadruple ick! On another, do you ever stop to think about how many buge we've all likely eaten in our lives? Not that I'm for bugs, but I think I'd rather eat one baked in something than eat something handled by someone who didn't wash their hands. (Of course, I say this from a comfortable distance; if I had found the bug in my cake batter, I'd probably still be twitching )

ewww!all i can say is thanks for sharing-i'll always check my stuff! you can learn something new from someone on cc everyday!!

I always sift my mixes, flour, etc. Someone posted that the cakes would rise better...and they did. I've never found bugs...only plastic. AFter reading this post I will sift looking for bugs too...YUCK!

Bugs are gross! I can't stand seeing bugs flying around food. I've seen people eat food after flies have landed on it. They think I'm being picky because I always cover my food, then I tell them how a fly eats and they change their mind.

I, too, have started sifting my cake mixes. Found a little black bug/gnat once before pouring the batter in the pan. When I sift cake mix, sometimes there are hard crystals in there...don't know is it's salt or what! I think one person on here posted about metal or some other foreign object in mix.
You know, at one point or another all of us have probably eaten a bug or 2 and not known...but that's the thing...out of sight, out of mind. It happens, but at least if you look and sift, you will catch it.

I found a few tiny bugs in a pasta & sauce package mix (kind of like KD). Gross.

gotta do the "boy" thing...

if you're that "bug-o-phobic" just read the standards for the processed foods we eat.

a certain amount of "foreign material" (aka, bits and piece of metal, grease, gook, bugs, poop, etc.) is acceptable in everything we eat.

and even home grown is going to have "foreign material" on/in it too.

and as one who had one of those depression era survivor moms -- well sifting was also for getting the bugs out so we could still eat it.

oh...and FYI the grain weevil eggs are ALREADY IN the flour and grain products when you buy them -- just waiting for the right conditions to hatch (and one very good reason to always store flour in the freezer)

getting "kissed" / kissing is far more dangerous to your health, not to mention shaking hands, the handles on shopping carts, etc.

and don't even begin to think about what your getting when the dog or cat "kisses" you or you it. Have you seen how they clean themselves?

and well kids + dirt (in all varieties) won't kill 'em -- in fact more and more studies prove we are TOO germ/dirt/bug/etc. phobic -- and that the overly clean house, esp. for babies and young children, leads to them have greater problems w/ allergies and asthma later on.

so.......

don't worry -- be happy -- and sift and freeze --

a little protein never hurt anyone (well unless it was alive, poisonous and bit ya!)

It's not a boy thing Doug.. I feel the same way.

I am SOOOOO not a germ/bug-a-phobe. I don't wash shopping cart handles.. don't use Purel (it doesn't work much anyway).. we play in the dirt.

Not that I would want to eat a bug, but I know that I have. I swallowed an ant once because it crawled down the straw of a drink I was drinking.. there was no stopping it.. it was already over teh hump..

Definitely do the right thing and don't bake it.. but I bet you have unknowingly in the past..

Sorry that happened to you, but you did the right thing by throwing it out. That's why I sift all my dry ingredients. I can't even stand the sight of bugs...eeeewww!

People in other countries eat bugs all the time! Watch Bizarre Eats with Andrew Zimmern and then you'll appreciate that you only found a bug in there.