Laura: Welcome to Eating the Past. I’m Laura Gelfand, here with my fellow hosts Jamie Sanders, Evelyn Funda, and Sarah Barry, and we’re here today to continue our mini-series on birthday cakes, in honor of this program reaching its 150th episode.
Last week we talked about the development of birthday cake from its ancient roots to European practices in the 18th century, but for most of that time span, only people of higher status or greater wealth were able to enjoy anything that even vaguely resembles our modern birthday cake.
Jamie: That all changed with the Industrial Revolution that began in the late 1700s. Refined sugar became cheaper and easier to get. Baking powder and baking soda were produced on an industrial scale and thus readily available, and cake tins and fancy cake molds became more affordable. Improved metal smelting also gave us what is called “the cast iron stove revolution,” and the domestic kitchen now had more reliable stoves with improved temperature regulation—a key factor in creating cakes that were lighter and had a finer crumb than the honey-based cakes of the past.
Sarah: Then, in 1933, when the Duff Company, a Pittsburgh molasses business, went in search of a way to sell more molasses, they patented a dehydrated flour mix for a gingerbread cake that included equal parts dried molasses and flour, in addition to powdered milk and dried eggs, and it only needed the addition of water to make the cake batter. In his patent, company president John Duff argued that baking a cake from scratch, rather than a cake mix, was inconvenient and expensive, required a number of ingredients that might not be available, and wasn’t foolproof. Failure, he wrote, would mean a loss of time, money, materials and energy.
Jamie: While that argument may have had special resonance during the Great Depression, nevertheless, cake mix sales remained sluggish until after the rationing of World War II was over. By1950, Americans seemed hungry for the convenience and affordability of a cake in a box, and, astonishingly, more than 200 companies entered the competition to get boxed cake mixes into the post-war kitchen. Still, one issue remained unresolved.
Evelyn: Back in 1935, John Duff had reflected on his first cake mix patent, writing, “The housewife and the purchasing public in general seem to prefer fresh eggs and hence the use of dried or powdered eggs [in cake mixes] is somewhat of a handicap, from a psychological standpoint.” By pinpointing this “psychological” factor, Duff was on to something that came up again in the 1950s. Whether demonstrably true or not, the fresh egg represented a more wholesome cake. Even while the Pillsbury Cake company stuck with their dried eggs and “just add water” formula, General Mills hired a marketing specialist who discovered that women wanted to feel like they had more of a hand in the process. Using the new research tool of “focus groups,” they found that women felt a sense of guilt, as if they weren’t doing enough to make their cakes special. Cracking eggs seemed to be the key to assuaging this guilt. For example, just listen to the audio from this 1951 television ad about the “perfect cake” where an actress playing the fictional Betty Crocker reassuringly says,...
“You don’t have to be an expert to bake a cake if you use my mix.... Just add water and two of your own fresh eggs. Those fresh eggs keep it moist and tender to the last crumb. Not that you’ll have any crumbs leftover.”
Laura: Thereafter, writes food historian Laura Shapiro, when bakers said they made cake “from scratch,” more often than not what they meant was that they used a boxed mix in their own homes, and thus cake mixes, Shapiro adds, have essentially “redefined” what baking means.
To watch the full Betty Crocker clip and read about the germ-load from blowing out the candles, visit the Eating the Past show notes on the UPR.org website. Join me, Evelyn Funda, next time for our final installment on birthday foods, when I will quiz my fellow hosts, and our listeners, on what they know about other celebratory foods. Eating the Past airs Sunday at noon right here on Utah Public Radio.
For more on the history of cake mixes, see the Bon Appetit article by Michael Y. Park at https://www.bonappetit.com/entertaining-style/pop-culture/article/cake-mix-history
That article mentions culinary historian Laura Shapiro and her book can be found here: Something from the Oven: Reinventing Dinner in 1950s America
To watch the full Betty Crocker commercial for her boxed cake mix, visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8Wtaumn5RY
To read more about the germ-load that comes with blowing out the candles on a birthday cake, read “Blowing Out Birthday Candles Increases Cake Bacteria by 1,400 Percent” by Sarah Zhang on The Atlantic’s website at https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/07/birthday-candle-bacteria/534987/. You can also take a look at the original 2017 scientific article “Bacterial Transfer Associated with Blowing Out Candles on a Birthday Cake” from The Journal of Food Research at https://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/jfr/article/view/67217
