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> feels like something pretty straight forward to fix. It is actually not. This is something I learned as a lad working in a bakery, professional bakers use a

> feels like something pretty straight forward to fix. It is actually not. This is something I learned as a lad working in a bakery, professional bakers use all kinds of ingredients not readily available at home. Especially in e.g. boxed cake mix, it's actually a half dozen ingredients that are totally impractical to keep on hand. Various gums, starches, dextrins, mono- and di-glycerides, surfactants, encapsulated flavors, specific leavening ratios, basically the whole chemistry set. The annoying thing is, the ingredient list says "modified food starch", but it could be any of a half a dozen different kinds of modified food starch, with different properties depending on how it's been modified and what the composition of the original starch was. Some are gelling, some are thickening, some are thinning, etc. That's also why making your own cakes trying to imitate them quickly becomes a fool's errand. You're never going to beat the chemistry that's in the box, and even if you did it would look more like molecular gastronomy than baking.

bruce511 1y ago
>> Various gums, starches, dextrins, mono- and di-glycerides, surfactants, encapsulated flavors, specific leavening ratios, basically the whole chemistry set. Um. Ok. You say this like it's a good thing? I'll be honest, your statement makes me want that less rather than more. Now granted, I never use mixes anyway, so I'm not the target market. I mean, baking a cake or cookies from ingredients is so simple a 5 year old can do it. my grandma likely never saw a pre-mix in her life, and would (very) never have used one even if it had been available. She lived on a farm, the idea of using a chemistry set to bake cookies ... well, you get the idea. I gotta say, tounge in cheek, if grandma's can't bake cookies anymore because the box size has changed, well, I'm not sure they want to bake at all. Sounds like a convenient excuse to me... But here's how to make your grandma really happy this birthday. Buy a few boxes and repack them into 18oz quantities. You'll be her favorite grandson forever. Or possibly not....
- crazygringo 1y ago
  They produce different textures and tastes. If you want to reproduce the texture a recipe had, then those are what you need. If not, then don't. But it's not like flour or corn starch or sugar or corn syrup or baking powder are fundamentally different from most of the ingredients listed. It's all refined and modified and engineered. Baking is chemistry. And if you want to be able to make a wide range of textures and tastes, you need to be able to tinker with all those things. Obviously you don't have to, most people stick to the most commonly available ingredients. But then you're just more restricted in the possibilities of what you can make. Maybe that's fine. All depends on what you want to make.
- lifeformed 1y ago
  Don't be so snobby about cake ingredients. There's nothing wrong with using processed food in a recipe. I garuntee a box mix will make a much better cake than "from scratch" unless you are very experienced. Cooking is not always about making the ultimate gourmet meal, it's about connection and tradition. Processed food is a normal part of every day people's lives and makes it's way into traditions. Grandma's secret recipe that uses a box mix will taste 10000x better than anything you think you can come up with from scratch. Baking is actually quite nuanced and difficult and precise, it's not something you just do perfectly the first time. To get consistent results in baking takes a lot of experience, or a box mix.
  - cmbuck 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - lifeformed 1y ago
      If someone is eating cakes at the scale at which the artificial ingredients are causing issues, the nutritional content of the cake itself would overtake most of the problems. A lot of scary sounding processed ingredients are perfectly safe and as natural as like orange juice or cheese. I know it's more ideal to eat a perfect from-scratch cake, but I wouldn't let a few processed ingredients get in the way of appreciating the cultural and social aspects of someone making a cake for me.
      - bruce511 1y ago
        The problem is indeed not processed ingredients in cake. Unfortunately, in the US, those ingredients are not limited to cake. And yes, most industrial, chemical, ingredients are harmless. That said, around the world, there's a emphasis on non-processed food. Unprocessed foods tend towards healthier. Less added sugar, less saturated fat etc. I guess, taken as an overall picture, American health is perceived as poor. Poor food choices. Poor food-related outcomes and so on. That's predicated on a food culture that prioritizes cost, profit, quantity, ubiquity etc over health and quality. Taken in that light, arguing in favor of processed foods seems like a outcome most countries would like to avoid.
- tavavex 1y ago
  > Um. Ok. You say this like it's a good thing? I'll be honest, your statement makes me want that less rather than more. That person listed a lot of completely different ingredients. Did you dismiss them all out of hand for a specific reason? Something tells me this is about that bias people have, the one where long chemical names are all bad, because they're chemicals, and the only good chemicals one may use is ones that are common enough to receive a non-intimidating normal name. It's all chemistry all the way down.
  - cogman10 1y ago
    If you look up the purpose of the various ingredients you quickly find that they are simply filling roles that other more commonly used household ingredients can take with minimal to no impact on flavor. Dextrins, for example, are simply thickening agents. Corn starch/potato starch. glycerides are literally just fats and added because most fats can't be powdered. Butter works just as well and is in fact preferable. Surfactants are soap, often simply used for emulsification. There's a bunch of cooking techniques to achieve that but, frankly, it's often not needed. "specific leavening ratios" is just silly. Yes, baking power and/or soda are needed in a lot of baking and you need to add enough and not too much. It isn't, however, and unforgiving ratio. A few grams more or less won't make a difference that anyone would care about. Yes, the boxed recipe has been specifically tweaked to be as foolproof and forgiving as possible. Further, there's definitely times where ingredients are added simply because it gives just a slight benefit to the outcome. But it's not as if you can't get close if not better with a from scratch recipe depending on what you are making. Angel food cake, for example, is far better when done from scratch. So are a few cakes like texas sheet cake and arguably brownies (that one is a holy war).
    - Dylan16807 1y ago
      Nothing in this comment suggests anything bad about them, just that you can do it a different way. If that's the reason to dismiss them, that's a very shallow reason.
      - komali2 1y ago
- deleted 1y ago
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deleted 1y ago
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imtringued 1y ago
So you're telling me it takes one update to the recipe of the boxed mix and you can never reproduce your old recipes? Sounds like one should avoid using ready made mixes altogether.
aDyslecticCrow 1y ago
Ive made great cookies from 100 year old recipes. Why do would i want a carbon copy of a store cookie. Ive never used or really seem cake mix in stores my whole life. Feels... American.
- cowsandmilk 1y ago
  Europe accounts for 31% of baking mix sales while North America accounts for 24.5%. https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/bakery-premixes-market-report https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/bakery-p...
  - OtherShrezzing 1y ago
    That's despite Europe having 2x the population of North America.
    - MisterSandman 1y ago
      Europe is also somewhat poorer than North America, to be fair.
      - aDyslecticCrow 1y ago
        Is cake mix expensive? Wouldn't powdered milk and egg be cheaper than real eggs? Is it actually more expensive to bake with cake mix than with short shelflife milk and egg? These companies must be making bank.
        account42 1y ago
        It depends but cake mixes are brand products and so don't enjoy the same kind of competition that fungible raw ingredients do. It depends on how much cake you bake though. For many ingredients you'll need less than the smallest packaging size - and much less than packaging sizes that aren't way overpriced.
    - 1y ago
codingdave 1y ago
Why would you try to imitate a boxed cake mix? They don't taste better than making a cake from scratch. It does take some practice baking to do so, but that is just an adulting skill like many others. Home baking doesn't need commercial chemistry. Commercial bakeries don't need to warn the kids not to jump in the house when the cake is baking. They are totally different scenarios.
- 14 1y ago
  Familiarity. Many grew up eating the boxed cakes so that is what represents what a cake should taste like. And in my opinion the taste and texture of many boxed cakes is good. Plus the simplicity of adding an egg, some oil and water makes it very appealing to many.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- BobaFloutist 1y ago
  You're on Hacker News. Why put an excess of effort into any nostalgic project? Why try to recapture Windows XP GUI or SNES graphics or try to hack together a classic car that was, by all measurements other than cool factor, inferior to a modern car?
  - account42 1y ago
    You're replying to a comment that responds to the claim that making cake from scratch is significantly harder than using a commercial cake mix because those contain millions of hard to get ingredients. If you want to precisely emulate it for the fun of it then more power to you but if you just want a good cake then no you don't need to. Basic flour, baking soda, sugar, cocoa powder, etc. will do the trick just fine.
matthewdgreen 1y ago
There's a hypothesis that some part of the obesity epidemic stems from the widespread use of powerful emulsifiers in factory-produced goods. They attack the lining of the lower intestines (basically mucous) and wipe out chunks of our gut microbiota. I have no idea whether this is true, but once you realize that even "fresh bread from your local bakery" is often made using factory-produced Sodexo dry mixes, you see how easily this could affect everyone.

bruce511 1y ago

>> Various gums, starches, dextrins, mono- and di-glycerides, surfactants, encapsulated flavors, specific leavening ratios, basically the whole chemistry set. Um. Ok. You say this like it's a good thing? I'll be honest, your statement makes me want that less rather than more. Now granted, I never use mixes anyway, so I'm not the target market. I mean, baking a cake or cookies from ingredients is so simple a 5 year old can do it. my grandma likely never saw a pre-mix in her life, and would (very) never have used one even if it had been available. She lived on a farm, the idea of using a chemistry set to bake cookies ... well, you get the idea. I gotta say, tounge in cheek, if grandma's can't bake cookies anymore because the box size has changed, well, I'm not sure they want to bake at all. Sounds like a convenient excuse to me... But here's how to make your grandma really happy this birthday. Buy a few boxes and repack them into 18oz quantities. You'll be her favorite grandson forever. Or possibly not....

crazygringo 1y ago
They produce different textures and tastes. If you want to reproduce the texture a recipe had, then those are what you need. If not, then don't. But it's not like flour or corn starch or sugar or corn syrup or baking powder are fundamentally different from most of the ingredients listed. It's all refined and modified and engineered. Baking is chemistry. And if you want to be able to make a wide range of textures and tastes, you need to be able to tinker with all those things. Obviously you don't have to, most people stick to the most commonly available ingredients. But then you're just more restricted in the possibilities of what you can make. Maybe that's fine. All depends on what you want to make.
lifeformed 1y ago
Don't be so snobby about cake ingredients. There's nothing wrong with using processed food in a recipe. I garuntee a box mix will make a much better cake than "from scratch" unless you are very experienced. Cooking is not always about making the ultimate gourmet meal, it's about connection and tradition. Processed food is a normal part of every day people's lives and makes it's way into traditions. Grandma's secret recipe that uses a box mix will taste 10000x better than anything you think you can come up with from scratch. Baking is actually quite nuanced and difficult and precise, it's not something you just do perfectly the first time. To get consistent results in baking takes a lot of experience, or a box mix.
- cmbuck 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - lifeformed 1y ago
    If someone is eating cakes at the scale at which the artificial ingredients are causing issues, the nutritional content of the cake itself would overtake most of the problems. A lot of scary sounding processed ingredients are perfectly safe and as natural as like orange juice or cheese. I know it's more ideal to eat a perfect from-scratch cake, but I wouldn't let a few processed ingredients get in the way of appreciating the cultural and social aspects of someone making a cake for me.
    - bruce511 1y ago
      The problem is indeed not processed ingredients in cake. Unfortunately, in the US, those ingredients are not limited to cake. And yes, most industrial, chemical, ingredients are harmless. That said, around the world, there's a emphasis on non-processed food. Unprocessed foods tend towards healthier. Less added sugar, less saturated fat etc. I guess, taken as an overall picture, American health is perceived as poor. Poor food choices. Poor food-related outcomes and so on. That's predicated on a food culture that prioritizes cost, profit, quantity, ubiquity etc over health and quality. Taken in that light, arguing in favor of processed foods seems like a outcome most countries would like to avoid.
tavavex 1y ago
> Um. Ok. You say this like it's a good thing? I'll be honest, your statement makes me want that less rather than more. That person listed a lot of completely different ingredients. Did you dismiss them all out of hand for a specific reason? Something tells me this is about that bias people have, the one where long chemical names are all bad, because they're chemicals, and the only good chemicals one may use is ones that are common enough to receive a non-intimidating normal name. It's all chemistry all the way down.
- cogman10 1y ago
  If you look up the purpose of the various ingredients you quickly find that they are simply filling roles that other more commonly used household ingredients can take with minimal to no impact on flavor. Dextrins, for example, are simply thickening agents. Corn starch/potato starch. glycerides are literally just fats and added because most fats can't be powdered. Butter works just as well and is in fact preferable. Surfactants are soap, often simply used for emulsification. There's a bunch of cooking techniques to achieve that but, frankly, it's often not needed. "specific leavening ratios" is just silly. Yes, baking power and/or soda are needed in a lot of baking and you need to add enough and not too much. It isn't, however, and unforgiving ratio. A few grams more or less won't make a difference that anyone would care about. Yes, the boxed recipe has been specifically tweaked to be as foolproof and forgiving as possible. Further, there's definitely times where ingredients are added simply because it gives just a slight benefit to the outcome. But it's not as if you can't get close if not better with a from scratch recipe depending on what you are making. Angel food cake, for example, is far better when done from scratch. So are a few cakes like texas sheet cake and arguably brownies (that one is a holy war).
  - Dylan16807 1y ago
    Nothing in this comment suggests anything bad about them, just that you can do it a different way. If that's the reason to dismiss them, that's a very shallow reason.
    - komali2 1y ago
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

imtringued 1y ago

So you're telling me it takes one update to the recipe of the boxed mix and you can never reproduce your old recipes? Sounds like one should avoid using ready made mixes altogether.

aDyslecticCrow 1y ago

Ive made great cookies from 100 year old recipes. Why do would i want a carbon copy of a store cookie. Ive never used or really seem cake mix in stores my whole life. Feels... American.

cowsandmilk 1y ago
Europe accounts for 31% of baking mix sales while North America accounts for 24.5%. https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/bakery-premixes-market-report https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/bakery-p...
- OtherShrezzing 1y ago
  That's despite Europe having 2x the population of North America.
  - MisterSandman 1y ago
    Europe is also somewhat poorer than North America, to be fair.
    - aDyslecticCrow 1y ago
      Is cake mix expensive? Wouldn't powdered milk and egg be cheaper than real eggs? Is it actually more expensive to bake with cake mix than with short shelflife milk and egg? These companies must be making bank.
      - account42 1y ago
        It depends but cake mixes are brand products and so don't enjoy the same kind of competition that fungible raw ingredients do. It depends on how much cake you bake though. For many ingredients you'll need less than the smallest packaging size - and much less than packaging sizes that aren't way overpriced.
  - 1y ago

codingdave 1y ago

Why would you try to imitate a boxed cake mix? They don't taste better than making a cake from scratch. It does take some practice baking to do so, but that is just an adulting skill like many others. Home baking doesn't need commercial chemistry. Commercial bakeries don't need to warn the kids not to jump in the house when the cake is baking. They are totally different scenarios.

14 1y ago
Familiarity. Many grew up eating the boxed cakes so that is what represents what a cake should taste like. And in my opinion the taste and texture of many boxed cakes is good. Plus the simplicity of adding an egg, some oil and water makes it very appealing to many.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
BobaFloutist 1y ago
You're on Hacker News. Why put an excess of effort into any nostalgic project? Why try to recapture Windows XP GUI or SNES graphics or try to hack together a classic car that was, by all measurements other than cool factor, inferior to a modern car?
- account42 1y ago
  You're replying to a comment that responds to the claim that making cake from scratch is significantly harder than using a commercial cake mix because those contain millions of hard to get ingredients. If you want to precisely emulate it for the fun of it then more power to you but if you just want a good cake then no you don't need to. Basic flour, baking soda, sugar, cocoa powder, etc. will do the trick just fine.

matthewdgreen 1y ago

There's a hypothesis that some part of the obesity epidemic stems from the widespread use of powerful emulsifiers in factory-produced goods. They attack the lining of the lower intestines (basically mucous) and wipe out chunks of our gut microbiota. I have no idea whether this is true, but once you realize that even "fresh bread from your local bakery" is often made using factory-produced Sodexo dry mixes, you see how easily this could affect everyone.