this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2025
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My first thought is why are people using these box mixes, the ingredients are trivial. There are recipes online that have the ingredients.
The base ingredients for many things are flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder and salt. -- these are not expensive and are shelf stable. A chocolate cake mix adds cocoa powder. Some need vanilla.
The mix already requires adding rggs and oil.
Mixing it yourself allows way better quality control; they aren't using high quality cocoa or vanilla.
Except that these mixes also include various emulsifiers, stabilizers and preservatives, which greatly improve the resulting product.
Which you can definitely add with the new found benefit of knowing exactly what is being included in your desert.
These are basically small amounts of powered milk and corn starch. In today's markets even some of the weirder options like soy letchin are available. At some point you can end up withering that is actually vegan which is a bonus for some people.
Dry Mix (equivalent to 1 Betty Crocker box, ~15.25 oz) • 1 ¾ cups (220 g) all-purpose flour • 1 ½ cups (300 g) sugar • ½ cup (45 g) unsweetened cocoa powder • 2 Tbsp cornstarch (softens crumb, mimics cake flour) • 3 Tbsp powdered milk (flavor, structure, moisture retention) • 1 ½ tsp baking powder • ½ tsp baking soda • ½ tsp salt • Optional “pro level”: 1–2 tsp soy lecithin granules emulsifier, boxed-mix texture)
Again, it is trivial to source these ingredients and these recipes are readily available.
I checked and Walmart carries all of these. Not that I suggest going to Walmart but it's at least an option against being way the whims of whoever owns Betty Crocker this decade.
It's a shortcut
Yes and the ultimate fuck you to these mega corps is to not use their shitty products and screaming loud and wide how easy it is to not use these things.