Do I avoid the "do you use a mix" question?? - Page 11

I'm sure that the Duncan Hines company has either been sold twenty times between 1951 and now, or they've changed the formulas for their mixes many times since then. Maybe the old dude is rolling in his grave, but his mixes are still gummy!

My, how this thread has degenerated...What was the original question???

I love how they keep updating the Betty Crocker logo periodically to better represent "The Modern Woman." I think they should make the next one a logo of a harried-looking woman with a cell phone who's calling for take-out! They could put the slogan "I've got your Crocker right here!" underneath it.

I noticed they did this to Aunt Jemima some years ago, too.
Thank goodness Col. Sanders is still the same friendly face I grew up with!

But it's not Kentucky Fried Chicken anymore, it's KFC (like that fools anyone!) Fried is a baaaaaad word, don'tcha know...

At least they recognized how stupid the "our chicken is healthy!" advertising campaign was and dropped it like a balloon wiht a big hole in it!

k8, you are so right! Here's the snopes story! http://www.snopes.com/lost/kfc.asp

The reasoning is so interesting! A great story!

Jessie, I haven't read the whole thread, but this is what I tell people who question me (I'm a box mix baker myself): "I never discuss my recipes with clients. You've tasted them, you've enjoyed them. Period." IF they persist I tell them that "some are started with a commercial starter but they are all scratch recipes." I say that with confidence too because if you call DH or BC or Pillsbury, and you tell them you have doctored their cake mix in any way, they consider it to be a scratch cake from that point on. No harm, no foul!

I've only gotten 1/2 way through the posts & I have to run away from the computer for awhile.

I too use mixes & just feel like people think they shouldn't pay you what you ask b/c you use a mix & "they can do that themselves". I know they can't decorate like me though...another subject.

But my ? is what do you do if it's not a client. Eg. At my dd's bday party I was getting soooo many compliments on how moist the chocolate cake was & then I'm asked "so how do you make your cakes, what do you do to make them so moist, do you start from a mix, etc". I just said I try so many different recipes ( & I do b/c I'm trying to get a set of recipes to use). But everything I do is docotored, not just a box. So, I do start w/ a box but it's more than that. So, my thing is I don't want them thinking that I open a box, pour in water, oil & eggs & bake when I don't. It's not fair for others to assume that we take the "easy way out", b/c it's taken me just as long to find my doctored mixes that I like as it has for scratch bakers to find their recipes. Plus, everything else I do is from scratch (cookies & desserts) & I wish I could honestly say I make everything from scratch

I use DH mix in my bakery also and our clients rave about our cakes. We tell them we start with a basic mix and add when we need to for flavors and such. We usually do not add to a flavor that DH carries, but we wrap them in Press and Seal while they are still warm and it locks in a lot of moisture. We constantly hear that we have the moistest cakes ever (not that we tell anyone how we do it LOL). My problem is we do a lot of sculpted work and the moistness of the cake usually causes it to fall apart. Has anyone had any luck adding to a DH mix to get a stiffer cake that still tastes good?

Try posting the ingredient list for a box of cake mix instead if you're going to argue from ingredient lists.

Here's one: http://www.generalmills.com/corporate/brands/product_image.aspx?catID=24401&itemID=2072

Propylene glycol monoesters of fatty acids? Distilled monoglycerides? What ARE those?

Well I've been testing out tons of recipes the past few weeks from scratch because our bakery is not a from scratch bakery anymore, and I cannot find one recipe that lives up to our mix. We use Pillsbury mixes that come in great big 50lb bags, and just add oil and water. I found our old recipes from when we were a 'from scratch' bakery, and it was all flour, fluid flex, sweetex, egg-yellow food coloring to make it look like it has more eggs than it does, liquid egg substitute, 'just add water' milk-from-a-can, etc...

Honestly, I prefer oil and water and cake mix to all that crap. I was aghast at how little actual FOOD there was in our cakes. But if you think about it, fluid flex and egg shade and flour and all that is already figured into the mix, it's the same exact recipe. So what difference is there, really? Honestly, it was pretty much imperceptible when we 'made the switch' to mixes.

Our mix is softer in texture than any from scratch recipe could be because of the fluid flex and other additives, and it bakes evener, and it's more stable, and it's perfectly firm enough to be able to be sculpted into awesome shapes and designs, it holds tiered shapes well, aw hell, it even freezes well. REALLY well. I can eat it frozen and it still tastes good to me! We go through it fast enough that it's never old sitting in the freezer, anyway.

So, why fix it if it ain't broke? I don't know. Baking is a science and if you are not a culinary arts grad with a firm knowledge in the chemistry of baking I personally would not attempt to make cakes from scratch, especially when I have such a high volume of cakes. No shame.

As for customers, I don't really know what to tell them because none of them ask me (then again, I'm hiding in the back decorating most of the time, with store girls dealing with people) AND THAT'S HOW I LIKE IT! hehe

No ownder why your scratch cakes were icky.. they have all of that artificial stuff in them. All of my recipes have real ingredients.. real eggs, real butter, real milk or buttermilk.. with all of that artificial nonsense in your recipies I can see why they wouldn't be better than a box.. they basically are a mix minus some of the gums.

Sounds like a lil to close to the science of baking to me.

Mike

*disclaimer* This is in no way to say ha ha ha my recipes are better than yours.. someone asked what gives the chemical taste in a mix and I am just trying to answer. Please don't get mad at me for answering a question.




Okay.. here is the break down between a mix and a scratch recipe

Betty Crocker Butter Recipe Yellow

Enriched Flour (wheat flour, niacin, iron, thiamin, mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid)
Sugar
Partially Hydrogenated Soybean and/or Cotton Seed Oil
Corn Syrup
Leavening (baking soda, sodium aluminum phosphate, monocalcium phosphate)
Modified Corn Starch
Propylene Glycol
Monoesters of Fatty Acids
Corn Starch
Dextrose
Salt
Dicalcium Phosphate
Distilled Monoglycerides
Xantham Gum
Natural and Artificial Flavor
Yellows #5&6
Nonfat Milk

The Yellow Cake I Bake

cake flour (wheat flour, niacin, iron, thiamin, mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid)
aluminum-free baking powder (Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate, Sodium Bicarbonate, Corn Starch, Monocalcium Phosphate)
salt
sweet butter
sugar
egg yolks
vanilla bean
full fat, organic sour cream (organic light cream and organic nonfat milk, microbial enzymes, and live and active cultures)
egg whites


MUCH less 'stuff' in it. No corn syrup. No modified food starch. No propylene glycol (which is the less toxic cousin of ethylene glycol or anti-freeze). No gums. No food coloring. No aluminum. All of this stuff is what you taste and what gives that gummy texture to box mix cakes.