They lied? - Page 2

Or maybe...just maybe...you can't really tell the difference as far as this bakery goes! You're going by an 'I could swear' hunch but maybe they are being truthful and you are just questioning it.
Honestly, if they're not claiming in their advertising that they are a 'from scratch' bakery, they really don't have to tell you anything. It's their proprietary right to keep their products and recipes--be they from box or scratch--a secret.

I worked at a bakery where we would occasionally get that question and it drove me nuts. I would ask why they were asking and usually it was just because they felt scratch was 'superior'. I just told them 'we do both scratch and mix baking depending on what the customer wants'--which was true. But it's funny that our best seller and most popular cake for weddings was a slightly doctored box cake.

That's exactly what we do for our gluten-free cakes...we've put together our own proprietary GF mix (which we used to package and sell to customers), and it works very similarly to a box mix. Is that scratch or not?

I would say if your making your own mix, it's still from scratch.

Responding to the "mill your own flour" issue and the semantics dance around "scratch baking":
did you also grow the Chick Peas or coconuts or whatever yourself first, before you milled it into flour? When I make a gluten free cake I make my own rice flour...BUT I don't fly out to my own personal rice patty in China and plant and harvest the rice myself. Honestly, I think everyone here knows what is meant by "scratch baking"...just ask your grandmother...or great grandmother if you're under 30.

Scratch baking...it's what your great-grandparents called BAKING.

I never understood the attitude of "they don't have to tell you if they bake from scratch". If I am paying for it, I have a right to ask. They don't have to answer my question, but I don't have to buy it. I am not asking for their recipe, which would be a trade secret, I am asking if they bake from scratch. I want to know, cause it's what I want to spend MY money on, and there for it is my business. It's just like some people who ask questions when they buy a used car or if I ask my doctore where he graduated from. I don't know his' grades, but I like to see the diploma and where he graduated from. We ask questions all the time about things we purchase, cause as consumers we want to know what we are paying for. I don't understand why asking someone if they bake from scratch or a mix is exempt to this rule and considered none of our business to ask.

You're probably a super taster, like I am. I took a paper test in Jr. high adn those that could taste the bitter paper were what they call super tasters. This might explain why some people don't like certain vegetables, etc. I can SMELL chemicals in mix cakes, but that's because I have a bionic nose (no joke, it's a curse), and scratch is all I've ever known. My 18th birthday cake was a mix cake because we had a family crisis and no one had time to bake. It was my first and last... I remember it being not "bad", but a weird texture and a bit on the dry side.

The point about milling your own flour was meant to illustrate one extreme end of the scratch baking spectrum. In my view a 100% scratch baker would indeed grow all their own ingredients and do all the processing themselves, but obviously very few people have the resources or wherewithal to do that these days.

At the other end of the spectrum would be a business that buys fully decorated cakes wholesale and resells them to customers or small businesses. In between there are people who invest in R&D to put together proprietary mixes from base ingredients, some who start with an existing mix and add their own twist, and others who don't modify an existing mix and instead focus more on things like decorating. A successful business can potentially be built on any point along the spectrum.

In the Information Technology world the "make vs. buy" decision is common when developing new business applications. Depending on what you want to focus on, you can either code a brand new application yourself, buy a customizable application and modify it to your liking, or just go with an off-the-shelf app so you can start adding value in other areas as soon as possible. None of these decisions are right or wrong, the best fit for your business will depend on how much capital you have, your in-house talent pool, and which competitive advantages you are targeting.



On the contrary, as we've seen in this thread the term "scratch baking" means different things to different people. To address the OP a better question to ask would have been whether the bakery uses their own mix or an off-the-shelf mix.

I'm not sure how it works in the states, but if asked, don't you have to provide the ingredients in food products? If I ask wether or not someone is using a mix, they should be under an obligation to tell me. What if I had an allergy to some preservatives or additives you would find in a mix? It could potentially turn into a health issue if you tried to keep it a secret. I know I can't eat dried fruit, it causes me headaches everytime. This became an issue when I purchased a cupcake with apples in the batter. I got a headache, so I went back to the bakery where they admitted it was dried apples, not fresh (they stated they used fresh products). Another time I ended up in the hospital with an allergic reaction due to someone using canned cherries... It's important to be upfront about the freshness of your ingredients.

I call BS on the "I don't know what scratch means" red herring argument. Everyone knows that baking from scratch is using flour, sugar, eggs, butter and BAKING, not using a mix and adding stuff to it. If you tell yourself that's baking from scratch you know you're full of it even if you won't admit it.

Using a doctored mix is no more baking from scratch than heating a Stouffer's lasagna and adding extra cheese to it is cooking from scratch.

Yes, you're supposed to disclose the ingredients if asked. You don't have to provide the balances, but you do have to tell what's in it. A lot of people don't seem to like that, though, so they dance around the issue and pretend like they don't have to.

I don't believe you are legally required to disclose ingredients (even allergens!) in a ready-to-eat item served from a restaurant or bakery unless the state or county has this requirement (many CFLs do) or you make a specific claim about the food (i.e. sugar-free).

http://www.fda.gov/food/guidancecomplianceregulatoryinformation/guidancedocuments/foodlabelingnutrition/ucm053455.htm#ready

And even if they were legally required to disclose the ingredients, they could simply list the ingredients in the mix as part of the final product, they would not need to specify whether it was mixed at their location ("scratch") or at a Betty Crocker plant.

My 11th grade Anatomy/Physiology teacher used to joke that in her home, vegetables were: ketchup and mustard. She still knew the actual difference. I don't hide my ingredients. I won't give out recipes to anyone, but I'm very considerate where allergies are concerned.

Sleeve fillings...*sigh*. Are they now considered "homemade"? And what the heck is shelf stable cream cheese filling? Never mind, I don't want to know...

I'm sorry, I've been watching too much MST3K again...

I'm legally required to disclose ingredients if asked in the state of Virginia, according to the department of agriculture, which regulates food production businesses. I had to get an exemption for putting labels on the cakes because they require ingredient labels for everything that's sold, even all of the ingredients in the cake mix that you use if you use one. Yes, you have to type them all out and put them on the food label along with anythign that you add to said mix.

Cutting through all the BS once again, it's just common sense and good customer service that if a client asks about food ingredients, you should tell them. You can dance around it but if you're not willing to tell someone what's in the food you're selling them, why are you selling it?

Why the #&&*# would anyone put what was in a Betty Crocker mix into a scratch cake? I have no need for stool softeners in my cake, thank you. Propylene Glycol. Look it up.