[rimprobablyly]

Oh no they don't.

[phil21]

I’d say it’s probably more common they use mixes than they create from scratch from the limited experience and talks I’ve had with bakers on the subject.

The professional part are the modifications, frosting, and decoration. Hard to beat the premade mixes for a base though.

[data-ottawa]

Slightly off topic, but I’m loving comparing all these sub discussions to programming.

The issues of boxes changing and dependency management, and this thread is rough analogy to coders who just glue prepackaged stuff together or overuse of packages.

I don’t know if there’s any real takeaway but I had never thought of programming problems in this way — things always felt a bit more abstract than cooking is.

[llbbdd]

The confidence. Why wouldn't they? The nobility inherent in suffering more labor to make a worse final product?

[bigstrat2003]

You put in barely more labor to get a better final product, because cakes (and brownies, etc) made from boxed mixes never turn out as well as those from scratch.

[ericpauley]

Oh yes they do: https://youtu.be/CZDFwqHkPec

(Also linked above)

[nkrisc]

What’s the difference between making the mix yourself, or just buying the exact same ingredients already mixed at the correct ratio?

[ufo]

Commercial cake mix is ultraprocessed,you likely won't find those ingredients in your pantry. The flour is bleached, they add emulsifiers you wouldn't find at home, the vegetable shortening is jydrogenated, etc.

[throwaway422432]

If you mix it yourself, you know exactly what is in it.

This means you can vary/substitute ingredients such as heart salt for regular salt if you're on a DASH diet (half the sodium chloride is replaced with potassium chloride).

[al_borland]

When a baker makes the cake from scratch I’m alway disappointed. Boxes mixes taste better. They can’t beat the emulsifiers in those box mixes.