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> 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

> 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
    It's cheaper and nicer to buy from simple graineries than from some faceless megacorp that's probably just Nestle, that's shrinking your boxes and not telling you as if you're a moron and can't tell. Also the powdered fats lack the flavor that wet ones do.
    - sfn42 1y ago
      In Norway these products usually don't have powdered fats. They will typically require that you add egg(s) and butter/margarin, maybe milk etc. Here's the ingredient list for Toro Brownies, translated by me. Sugar, wheat flour, reduced-fat cocoa, baking powder(calcium phosphate, sodium carbonate), coffee, salt, vanillin I'm not sure about the fat reduced cocoa, for all I know that might just be what I think of as normal cocoa powder, and the rest are just regular ingredients anyone would use. No fancy surfactants and powdered fats etc.
      - account42 1y ago
        But then there is even less point in buying the branded mix rather than individual ingredients that you can use for various recipes with ratios that you like.
        sfn42 1y ago
        The point is that I can make brownies, rolls, whatever I please without having a cupboard full of all kinds of crap like flour, sugar, cocoa etc that attracts bugs and expires and so on. I buy one bag that's dirt cheap and has everything I need including instructions. And it just has the same stuff I would be using anyway so there's no downside. No scary ingredients. Just freshly baked goods on demand.
        komali2 1y ago
        What I'm learning is that some people don't keep a stock of what I would consider "bare minimums" in their cupboard. First of all, properly stored flour, sugar, and cocoa powder doesn't attract bugs. Glass jars that seal well, done. Hell even plastic tubs. It expires pretty rarely as well, surely you can just bang out a couple of loaves of bread before that happens? Anyway, yeah, is it not like, a very normal thing to keep flour, sugar, baking soda, cocoa powder, salt, perhaps yeast on hand? Butter, oil, some pasta, maybe some rice? Like, how do you cook otherwise, just buy small batches of these things every time?

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
  It's cheaper and nicer to buy from simple graineries than from some faceless megacorp that's probably just Nestle, that's shrinking your boxes and not telling you as if you're a moron and can't tell. Also the powdered fats lack the flavor that wet ones do.
  - sfn42 1y ago
    In Norway these products usually don't have powdered fats. They will typically require that you add egg(s) and butter/margarin, maybe milk etc. Here's the ingredient list for Toro Brownies, translated by me. Sugar, wheat flour, reduced-fat cocoa, baking powder(calcium phosphate, sodium carbonate), coffee, salt, vanillin I'm not sure about the fat reduced cocoa, for all I know that might just be what I think of as normal cocoa powder, and the rest are just regular ingredients anyone would use. No fancy surfactants and powdered fats etc.
    - account42 1y ago
      But then there is even less point in buying the branded mix rather than individual ingredients that you can use for various recipes with ratios that you like.
      - sfn42 1y ago
        The point is that I can make brownies, rolls, whatever I please without having a cupboard full of all kinds of crap like flour, sugar, cocoa etc that attracts bugs and expires and so on. I buy one bag that's dirt cheap and has everything I need including instructions. And it just has the same stuff I would be using anyway so there's no downside. No scary ingredients. Just freshly baked goods on demand.
        komali2 1y ago
        What I'm learning is that some people don't keep a stock of what I would consider "bare minimums" in their cupboard. First of all, properly stored flour, sugar, and cocoa powder doesn't attract bugs. Glass jars that seal well, done. Hell even plastic tubs. It expires pretty rarely as well, surely you can just bang out a couple of loaves of bread before that happens? Anyway, yeah, is it not like, a very normal thing to keep flour, sugar, baking soda, cocoa powder, salt, perhaps yeast on hand? Butter, oil, some pasta, maybe some rice? Like, how do you cook otherwise, just buy small batches of these things every time?