Spam is a hell of a lot harder to make than cake mix. Cake mix is literally just measuring, and what was in the box when your mom made it isn't from the same suppliers, or probably of the same quality, as what's in the box now.

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brian-armstrong 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

But these bakers don't want "cake mix", they want the specific Betty Crocker cake mix

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bruce511 2 days ago | parent [-]

[flagged]

	▲	wpm a day ago \| parent [-]
		Good lord what an ignorant comment. What the hell is someone going to do with an unusable fraction of boxed cake mix? Especially not an even fraction? Like, come on, muster up the thought of a recipe that uses a can of, I dunno, coconut milk or something. For 50 years you could buy “1 can of coconut milk” and that was it. Open can. Add to ingredients. Cook. Done. Now the can of coconut milk has been shrunk by 1.55ounces (inb4 durrr ur units are dumb, the problems exists if you measure in mL too) to increase profits and annoy you. Now to make your recipe, you have to scale by a stupid factor, or in your sage, genius advice no one apparently could’ve thought of on their own (what would we do without you!), but two cans, use up one completely, and use just 1.55oz of the next. What the fuck do I do with the leftovers? Coconut milk isn’t exactly something you just drink alone. You can’t reseal the can. It’s gonna go bad before you want to make $RECIPE again. But hey, they got you to buy two cans, just so you can waste most of the second before you realize you were fucking swindled by some shitheel in loafers and a sweater vest with an MBA. There are perishable ingredients emulsified in cake mix. Once you open the bag it has a very short useful shelf life. These are not hard concepts to understand.

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sniffers 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

What's in the box is unknown to most people. Unknowable, even. They are surprisingly complex mixes.

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AlecSchueler 2 days ago | parent [-]

Don't they have ingredients lists or is that a very European thing?

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unwind a day ago | parent [-]

Sure they do, but nobody seems to have posted it yet.

The exact box in the article (it had a link!) has the following ingredients listed:

Enriched Flour Bleached (wheat flour, niacin, iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), Sugar, Corn Syrup, Cocoa Processed with Alkali, Leavening (baking soda, monocalcium phosphate, sodium aluminum phosphate). Contains 2% or less of: Modified Corn Starch, Palm Oil, Corn Starch, Propylene Glycol Mono and Diesters, Monoglycerides, Salt, Dicalcium Phosphate, Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, Xanthan Gum, Cellulose Gum, Carob Powder, Artificial Flavor.

Now I've been interested in cooking for 30+ years, and do all of our home cooking and baking, and there's no way I would believe that I can substitute typical from-scratch/pantry ingredients and get the same result.

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alexdbird a day ago | parent | next [-]

This list isn't really selling it to me! Mmm, aluminium, yummy propylene glycol.

The things you need from that list are Wheat flour (white), corn flour (starch), Sugar, Cocoa, Baking powder, Salt, Vanilla. I doubt carob adds anything that a spoonful of instant coffee wouldn't.

Now I get your point that it wouldn't produce the same result, but I'd be surprised if it produced a worse result.

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wpm a day ago | parent | next [-]

Oh no! Scary looking ingredients! That must mean they’re bad!

	▲	account42 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Oh no! Comment on a long list of ingredients! That must mean they're making the argument I think they are!

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AlecSchueler a day ago | parent | prev [-]

It reminds me of when I first started eating homemade bread. At first I didn't like it because it was different than I was used to, I considered getting the additives myself to get the same texture, but eventually I learned to love it and now can't imagine eating supermarket bread.

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AlecSchueler a day ago | parent | prev [-]

> substitute typical from-scratch/pantry ingredients

Why are you limited to what's in your pantry? Just get the extra ingredients online.

	▲	account42 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Or don't. Or add different additives. When cooking "from scratch" you have the option to make what you like and not what some corporation has determined sells the best. A lot of the extra ingredients are only needed for the latter goal but not for the former.