What ingredients will you only use a brand name? - Page 3

I don't care how much they try to tell us, generics are different. There has to be a reason why they can make it cheaper, not just because you are paying for the brand.

For example, Rice Krispies are made with sugar, the store brand I can get uses HFCS. I have a box of the generic waiting to be tossed because I won't use it and I won't let my family eat it. I should have read the ingredient list first, which I do now!

I tried an off brand of powdered sugar once and it was horrible. I could tell the difference. There is pure cane sugar and beet sugar and the off brands use beet sugar. I have used Sunny Select pure cane sugar and it was fine. Just beware of beet sugar.

Sometimes thought the "name brands" just dont work like they should. I cant get Toll House chocolate chips to make a smooth ganache ( i use Hersheys milk choc) and I cant make Jet Puff marshamllows melt smooth for MMF ( i use walmarts great value)

This is so true. I have always used cheap store brand butter spray. Once I used Pam because it was on sale. All my cakes stuck the day I decided to use it - and stuck badly - as though I hadn't used anything in my pan. Every last one. I threw it in the cabinet for pan frying. I ran out and bought my fav store brand and no cake sticking issues after that.

Store brand does not automatically equal inferior. It's just anther brand and can be considered as a viable option.

A friend of mine worked for Sherwin Williams for years. She took care of the WalMart brand line - in other words - WalMart brand is/was Sherwin Williams Paint with a WalMart logo on it and a much lower price tag.

Do your homework. You may be passing up a perfectly good brand with a generic label on it.

Ditto on Philadelphia Cream Cheese. I used the GFS brand (comes in a big 3lb box and when you make 8 lbs of cheeseball for a catering, it's darn convenient!). Hubby could tell a BIG difference and it was one of the few times I had leftover cheeseball at the event. After that, I unwrapped each of those rectangles of the Kraft Philly brand!

I used the Walmart brand choc cake mix as a base for my chocolate cookies. then walmart discontinued it. The grocery manager told me, when he broke the bad news to me, "I knew YOU'D be upset over the news!" I tried the name brand cake mixes .... DH and BC .... but they just didnt' work the same.

Good to know as I am in the process of putting together my supply list from Sysco and another local restaurant supply store. I was wondering if there was a difference in the CC.

Linda, Junior's Cheesecakes only uses Philadelphia Cream Cheese and has stated that others are inferior.

ha ha ha Some of you guys are soooo funny. It cracks me up how we get these idea that a "brand" name is better than a Generic. The brand name is a brand name because they spent all that money on marketing to make their name a household name. They run commercials etc.

MANY MANY MANY of your "generic" or store brand products are manufactured by your favorite brand name companies. Nothing on the packaging tells you who manufactured it. Just who it was manufactured for. They are less expensive than the name brands because they don't spend as much on marketing, packaging, and advertising.

I've tried lots of different products during my lifetime and yes, there are certain products I like better than others. But I could never say that the "best" products were always name brand.

You should do your own little taste tests sometimes and see what happens. Just make sure you do a little "blind" taste test for yourself so you don't allow your pre-conceptions to taint the results. Then you'll know for sure if you definitely like one brand better than another or if you just think you do.

I LOVE generic brands when it comes to caking. Saves me money and tastes the same, I think. I do however use real vanilla from Mexico and farm fresh eggs.

Not only have I done taste tests, I have also done recipe testing. Trust me, at today's prices I would love to use the store brand butter over LOL. But in baking tests for cakes and frosting there was a noticeable difference.

Dole crushed pineapple and store brand. Both are 8 ounces. However the store brand has more juice than pineapple. I measured both to find out. It is not always taste. I am not paying for juice. Maybe Dole is the source for both, but they know how to slightly change something to sell to store brands. They are not going to give the sane standards to the store brand products.

High fructose corn syrup instead of real sugar is another example. I have yet to find a store brand product that does not contain it.

For some of us it is a matter of what ingredients we want to ingest. Because I can purchase ingestable items not laddened with chemicals or artificial ingredients is why I buy the stuff I do. It has nothing to do with their years of marketing and such. Afterall it is my money to spend.

It is true that many big companies make the store brands, but they cheapen them. Valspar used to be a respected paint company but they also made Lowe's name brand which was one of the worst on the market. Valspar dropped their quality line and gave their endorcement and name to the Lowe's brand. Still terrible paint, but higher volume with the name that used to be respected.

Generic flours and sugars are not as consistent in their processing, creating an inferior product. If you scratch bake and want consistent and the best results, food scientists will tell you to stay away.

I don't know of any celebrated cake or pastry chef that does not explain that the very best of every product should be used. There is a difference. It separates the great cakes from the good cakes. BUT, not every baker wants to cater to this clientele. My ingredient prices are about the retail prices of my area bakeries.

If you want the best taste with a few compromises on ingredient costs, here is my suggestion... Off brand sugar... run it through the processor to even out the granules. A few more spins and you have superfine sugar which is great for cakes. Get rid of all, even vanilla, "extracts" that are not real. The flour can be used if you are happy with the results. Off brand butters are usually inferior. A mix of off brand and name brand butter may be a good compromise. Splurge for vanilla bean paste in frostings. Even a 50/50 mix of extract and paste will make a big difference. As you experiment and are able to adjust your price, add the good stuff a little at a time.

Depending on where you buy it can make a diff, too.

I was 'educated' on why it was sometimes hit-n-miss on being able to find certain items at places like sam's club. Let me use Stouffer's just as an example. they make a batch of their frozen lasagna and discover they forgot to add the oregano. It's still perfectly good lasagna except for that little lack of oregano. They can't sell it in the regular stores, but places like sam's will buy up this non-conforming batch at a super low price. What a great deal ..... I buy 6 to put in my freezer.

A few months later, I want to restock my freezer with this great price lasagna but sam's isn't stocking it ..... because it was a one-time buy of a non-conforming product.

Same name brand .... not the same quality.

You definitely have to watch the Nestles and Hersheys chocolate chips - they've reformulated some of them to include less cocoa butter and more oil. Even their candy products have been changed so they now melt differently and have an awful (IMO) mouth feel. Many companies have been doing this since the laws were changed a few years ago to say how much of each ingredient is allowed for it to still be considered chocolate.