3 ms·

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 whol

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.
  - hapless 1y ago
    The EU contains about 30% more people than the USA alone. (450MM vs 340MM) North America overall contains many more people than the EU. (340 + 129 + 40 for just USA, Mexico, Canada, plus another ~50MM in smaller countries. 560ish total)
    - OtherShrezzing 1y ago
      The EU is only around 2/3 of the population of the continent of Europe.
- aDyslecticCrow 1y ago
  > seem cake mix in stores my whole life I checked my lagest local grocery store chain and they do have one brand of cake mixes. They never really crossed my mind before. Chocolate chip and two types of pundcake.... though that's both among the simplest baking recipies so i still don't quite see the point. There's also pre-made pie dough, that i could see using.
  - beacon294 1y ago
    Pie dough is quite simple, but I imagine they use some chemistry to improve, as per the other food chemistry posts...
    - aDyslecticCrow 1y ago
      Yes and no. Its usually butter based dough needing to be kneaded finely and left to rest an hour before use, prefferably pre-baked in pan before adding filling for best result. You can get it quite quick with a food processor or a kitchenaid mixer, but kneading such a dough by hand and having the time to let rest, flatten with a rolling pin and pre-bake in pan, push pie up a bit in the effort ranking. So i feel there is real value in quickly putting a pre-flattened doough sheet in a pan, especially if some chemistry can skip the pre-bake step. So i see the appeal much more for this product over pound cake mix which is just four, sugar, egg and leveling agent.
MisterSandman 1y ago
Can we stop calling things you find weird “American?” Like Jesus Christ, Europe isn’t some special land where everyone makes food from scratch and capitalism doesn’t exist. I’m not even American, but are we seriously judging people for baking cakes using cake mixes? It’s been around for almost a century. I highly doubt that cake mixes aren’t just as common in Europe than they are in the US within a margin of error.
- aDyslecticCrow 1y ago
  Cake mix is not only an American invention, predominantly sold by American companies (even in the European market), featuring traditionally American baked goods. (Pound cake, brownies and chocolate chip) Looking for cake mix history in sweden descibe its initial import from USA and England as American style cookies and brownies became popular. Its American association is well founded. And i did not use the word wierd. I simply pointed out that this ubiquity of "cake mix" baked goods is not reflected in my experience, and may be more concentrated in USA. In particular in take issue with phrasing cake mix as "family recipe" as even the brands i can find at my store are younger than one generation, and has nowhere near the cultural footprint that they seem to have in USA.
  - Tadpole9181 1y ago
    > pound cake This isn't meant to reply to the rest of the comment, but as an American I don't think I've ever seen or eaten a pound cake mix? The recipe is the name... You either make it for $1 or you go to the grocery/bakery and grab the $2 pound cake sitting on the counter. Most mixes people buy (at least around here) are brownies, cookies, and spongecake.
    - aDyslecticCrow 1y ago
      I use poundcake as a synonym to spongecake. The ingredients and process are the same, with variations large enough between recipes to accommodate both. (Cupcake, chocolate cake, lemom cake, some apple cakes all use the same basic dough composition too) Poundcake vary greatly beyond a "pound". If anything, spongecake is more strictly defined, originally not using leveling agents, relying on the air bubbles introduced in the beating of the eggs. But thats semantics. Perhaps spongecake is more recognised as the umbrella term.

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.
- hapless 1y ago
  The EU contains about 30% more people than the USA alone. (450MM vs 340MM) North America overall contains many more people than the EU. (340 + 129 + 40 for just USA, Mexico, Canada, plus another ~50MM in smaller countries. 560ish total)
  - OtherShrezzing 1y ago
    The EU is only around 2/3 of the population of the continent of Europe.
aDyslecticCrow 1y ago
> seem cake mix in stores my whole life I checked my lagest local grocery store chain and they do have one brand of cake mixes. They never really crossed my mind before. Chocolate chip and two types of pundcake.... though that's both among the simplest baking recipies so i still don't quite see the point. There's also pre-made pie dough, that i could see using.
- beacon294 1y ago
  Pie dough is quite simple, but I imagine they use some chemistry to improve, as per the other food chemistry posts...
  - aDyslecticCrow 1y ago
    Yes and no. Its usually butter based dough needing to be kneaded finely and left to rest an hour before use, prefferably pre-baked in pan before adding filling for best result. You can get it quite quick with a food processor or a kitchenaid mixer, but kneading such a dough by hand and having the time to let rest, flatten with a rolling pin and pre-bake in pan, push pie up a bit in the effort ranking. So i feel there is real value in quickly putting a pre-flattened doough sheet in a pan, especially if some chemistry can skip the pre-bake step. So i see the appeal much more for this product over pound cake mix which is just four, sugar, egg and leveling agent.

MisterSandman 1y ago

Can we stop calling things you find weird “American?” Like Jesus Christ, Europe isn’t some special land where everyone makes food from scratch and capitalism doesn’t exist. I’m not even American, but are we seriously judging people for baking cakes using cake mixes? It’s been around for almost a century. I highly doubt that cake mixes aren’t just as common in Europe than they are in the US within a margin of error.

aDyslecticCrow 1y ago
Cake mix is not only an American invention, predominantly sold by American companies (even in the European market), featuring traditionally American baked goods. (Pound cake, brownies and chocolate chip) Looking for cake mix history in sweden descibe its initial import from USA and England as American style cookies and brownies became popular. Its American association is well founded. And i did not use the word wierd. I simply pointed out that this ubiquity of "cake mix" baked goods is not reflected in my experience, and may be more concentrated in USA. In particular in take issue with phrasing cake mix as "family recipe" as even the brands i can find at my store are younger than one generation, and has nowhere near the cultural footprint that they seem to have in USA.
- Tadpole9181 1y ago
  > pound cake This isn't meant to reply to the rest of the comment, but as an American I don't think I've ever seen or eaten a pound cake mix? The recipe is the name... You either make it for $1 or you go to the grocery/bakery and grab the $2 pound cake sitting on the counter. Most mixes people buy (at least around here) are brownies, cookies, and spongecake.
  - aDyslecticCrow 1y ago
    I use poundcake as a synonym to spongecake. The ingredients and process are the same, with variations large enough between recipes to accommodate both. (Cupcake, chocolate cake, lemom cake, some apple cakes all use the same basic dough composition too) Poundcake vary greatly beyond a "pound". If anything, spongecake is more strictly defined, originally not using leveling agents, relying on the air bubbles introduced in the beating of the eggs. But thats semantics. Perhaps spongecake is more recognised as the umbrella term.