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They lied? - Page 4

post #46 of 145
1/24/12 at 3:45pm
Well, I have asked my chickens how they make eggs, but they only look at me, then the roosters step in and tell me that that is the Great Secret of all chickens, and I will never know.

Deep sigh........

However I have grown wheat, and milled my own flour, and then baked my own bread. I have no idea how to take the milled flour to a nice soft white flour. But I can say that I LOVE store bought flour. Sure, it tasted great, but the loaf was a bit heavy. I would NOT want to bake a cake from that flour.

And, during the "separating the wheat from the chaff" process.......it brought a WHOLE LOT of chickens to me and they didn't want to share the wheat with me or my bread.

Tami detective.gif

...............sometimes I just can't help myself..............
Always put your eggs in one basket.......why do you want to carry two?
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Always put your eggs in one basket.......why do you want to carry two?
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post #47 of 145
1/24/12 at 4:07pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by scp1127

Costumeczar, you nailed it in your first post. Everyone absolutely knows what scratch baking is. There is no question about it.

After you swallow the cake, icing, filling, etc., there is a lingering taste. This is where the chemicals can't hide and that slight bitterness can be detected.



I agree! This is why I am convinced it is a box - the aftertaste. It tastes like chemicals. I think that most people just get used to that taste and can no longer distinguish it as something different. Also, the icing on this particular cake was so thick (1/2 inch on the outside and it was only a 6-inch cake) that you could hardly taste the cake when eaten together. I tasted the cake by itself (that was why I bought it after all) and it had that chemical aftertaste.

Like I said before, I'm all for this bakery starting with a box. More power to them if that's what they want to use and like, or at least believe their customers want. But if they are doing what they believe in, why lie about it and try to fool me? I was just surprised at the thought that they would outright lie to my face. Of course, as discussed above, there are arguments that it wasn't really a blatant lie on the part of the girl I spoke with.

On the whole "what is scratch" debate, we can argue semantics all day long but that is all it is, semantics. Wordplay. You can always make an argument based on the language used. Always. But the fact that an argument can be made does not mean the original language was not understood. Just because you can argue that someone didn't know what I meant by "made from scratch" doesn't mean that the phrase doesn't have a common meaning that anyone, especially someone working in a bakery, would know.
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post #48 of 145
1/24/12 at 7:40pm
Well, I've read some of this and I'd suggest that there is another definition of "scratch" among some commercial bakeries.
It translates into "made in-house" versus having been made in a factory and purchased, either fresh, or frozen, by the bakery.

The word is out that some bakeries buy pre-baked, frozen sheet cakes & cut shapes from them. I don't agree with this definition, but I can see how a bakery that actually bakes the cake--even though it might be using a commercial mix--would want to separate itself from this type of product. The simplest way is to call their product "scratch".

No, it's not really scratch. It's just their way of feeling superior to their competition.

Rae
I love you, but your emergency is not my crisis!

They say that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it is not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance.--Terry Pratchett (b.194
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I love you, but your emergency is not my crisis!

They say that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it is not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance.--Terry Pratchett (b.194
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post #49 of 145
1/24/12 at 10:10pm
Lies like these are what helps prompt legislation to require labels. I can't wait until labels are required on every food product.

These lies are also why the FDA requires analysis of foods from a certified lab.
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post #50 of 145
1/25/12 at 3:41am
Quote:
Originally Posted by BlakesCakes

The word is out that some bakeries buy pre-baked, frozen sheet cakes & cut shapes from them. I don't agree with this definition, but I can see how a bakery that actually bakes the cake--even though it might be using a commercial mix--would want to separate itself from this type of product. The simplest way is to call their product "scratch".

No, it's not really scratch. It's just their way of feeling superior to their competition.

Rae



that's exactly it.
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post #51 of 145
1/25/12 at 3:48am
And just because someone says something is true over and over it doesn't mean that anyone with any sense can see that it isn't. My grandmother the control freak suddenly decided one day that everyone should call her "Nana". Nobody had ever called her "Nana" before, but she insisted that all the grandchildren had ALWAYS called her that. Nobody had EVER called her anything else. Well, considering that my sister and I had always called her "Grandma" and we were old enough to have kids of our own, we knew that wasn't true. She wasn't senile, either, just decided that she wanted to redefine herself or something. Just saying that everybody had always called her that didn't make it true.

So if you call Betty Crocker "scratch" you might be fooling yourself, but anyone who has a brain knows that it isn't true.
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post #52 of 145
1/25/12 at 8:11am
My 2 cents...

The OP does NOT know for a fact that the bakery used a mixed. She thinks it was a mix. So we don't know for sure the bakery employee lied.

Second, OP: did you specifically ask if all cake flavors were scratch baked? Maybe the bakery has a few (or even 1) cake that is baked from scratch. Then when asked, they can say "yes" without exactly lying.

I bake most of my recipes using WASC variations. A couple are scratch baked (but no, I do not hatch my own eggs or mill my own flour but there is abslolutely no mix of any kind in thses cakes I call "scratch"). When people ask I tell them some cakes start with a mix then several ingredients are added to it and others are from scratch. No one has ever asked which is which. I really don't think MOST (not all) people care, they just read on a blog or magazine that is something they should ask their baker.
"who says you can't have your cake and eat it too?"
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"who says you can't have your cake and eat it too?"
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post #53 of 145
1/25/12 at 10:59am
I have had absolutely the best AND worst tasting scratch cakes. I've had absolutely the best AND worst tasting box cakes. I go with what I like. Scratch doesn't make it better...the mix doesn't make it bad. If one is hung up on scratch cake and they have a refined enough palate to tell the difference...then why ask the baker at all? You've already decided you don't like it so what difference does it make? It's cake! You like it or you don't. If you like it, buy it. If you don't....don't.
Simple!
A closed mouth gathers no feet.
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A closed mouth gathers no feet.
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post #54 of 145
1/25/12 at 5:10pm
hmmm, if "scratch isn't better" I wonder why hundreds of us that bake from scratch bother to do so.
It would be a heck of a lot easier and less expensive to buy a bunch of cake mixes and add stuff to it.

I wouldn't have to ask the "mix or scratch" question because I can pick out the chemical taste in a mix cake, immediately...I can even smell it.

There's no reason to disclose recipes but a simple "yes" or "no" answer to the question "do you use a mix" shouldn't be that difficult to give. You either use a mix or you don't. No gray areas here.

If you bake from scratch you'll know it. Now if you honestly don't know if you use a mix....well that's a problem I'm not qualified to help you with. icon_razz.gif
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post #55 of 145
1/25/12 at 5:48pm
ooh ooh ooh... sick at home w/flu, my fevered brain just came up with either a truly "ingenious" or "sinister" (depending on your point of view) answer for all those bakeries who start w/mix but want to honestly claim to bake "from scratch"...and it is sooo obvious:

Introducing the new "From Scratch" cake mix .
Yes, folks, it is the same ol' DH box of cake mix, but with a shiny new name! Now, whenever a potential customer asks, "Do you bake from scratch?" You can proudly (and truthfully) answer "Yes - EVERYTHING we bake is 'From Scratch'!"
.. going back to refill my Niquil now.....
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post #56 of 145
1/25/12 at 6:21pm
SO I was at Sprinkles a while back, my 1st and last time there. I ask the counter girl, "Do you make all this from scratch?"

And she says....

Wait for it....

"Well, there's, like, totally a big mixer in the back!" O8

Sigh.
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post #57 of 145
1/25/12 at 6:24pm
No, no, please don't stop beating the horse, I don't think he's quite dead enough yet. icon_razz.gif
Before you ask- I'm licensed, inspected, insured, and all that jazz.
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Before you ask- I'm licensed, inspected, insured, and all that jazz.
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post #58 of 145
1/25/12 at 6:29pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by carmijok

I have had absolutely the best AND worst tasting scratch cakes. I've had absolutely the best AND worst tasting box cakes. I go with what I like. Scratch doesn't make it better...the mix doesn't make it bad. If one is hung up on scratch cake and they have a refined enough palate to tell the difference...then why ask the baker at all? You've already decided you don't like it so what difference does it make? It's cake! You like it or you don't. If you like it, buy it. If you don't....don't.
Simple!



This thread wasn't about mix vs. scratch as if any is better than the other like most of the other mix and scratch debates here. The OP's question was focusing on the fact that she thought she was lied to, and the discussion has been about the morals of customer service and what the word scratch could mean to bakeries.
Sofia
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Sofia
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post #59 of 145
1/25/12 at 6:41pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Spuddysmom

ooh ooh ooh... sick at home w/flu, my fevered brain just came up with either a truly "ingenious" or "sinister" (depending on your point of view) answer for all those bakeries who start w/mix but want to honestly claim to bake "from scratch"...and it is sooo obvious:

Introducing the new "From Scratch" cake mix .
Yes, folks, it is the same ol' DH box of cake mix, but with a shiny new name! Now, whenever a potential customer asks, "Do you bake from scratch?" You can proudly (and truthfully) answer "Yes - EVERYTHING we bake is 'From Scratch'!"
.. going back to refill my Niquil now.....



Hahaha! You think this is a joke, but there's a food service company around here that advertises "house brand" dressings and condiments on the side of their trucks. So if you go to a restaurant that uses them and ask for the house dressing, they can give that to you and you'll think that you're getting the chef's special recipe when you're really getting something from a gallon jug.
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post #60 of 145
1/25/12 at 7:17pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by costumeczar

Hahaha! You think this is a joke, but there's a food service company around here that advertises "house brand" dressings and condiments on the side of their trucks. So if you go to a restaurant that uses them and ask for the house dressing, they can give that to you and you'll think that you're getting the chef's special recipe when you're really getting something from a gallon jug.


I thought house dressing was basically oil, vinegar, and salt...unless you think the restaurant is pressing their own oil and distilling their own vinegar, of course the dressing will come in gallon jugs. I certainly don't expect anything special or unique when I order house dressing unless the restaurant specifically calls it out as such.
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