Cake does not come from a mix

I make no claims on the cooking front. I agree with Dixie that modifying prepared food does not count as creating an amazing recipe, though I have recently become a big fan of Cooking With All Things Trader Joe's. I'm good at making marinara sauce, poached eggs and spinach (often together). Beyond that, I'm really good at delivery and leftovers.

However, when it comes to baking I have some feelings.

Thing 1, Cake does not come from a mix. Neither do cookies. Or pancakes.

Here's the secret about baking: the hardest part is cleaning up. Beyond that, it's chemistry. Unless you want to get fancy and make up your own new taste sensations, all you have to do is precisely follow the directions. Sure, you may have to make an allowance for an unbalanced oven or altitude, but beyond that....follow the directions.

You don't have to chop a million spices, use any fancy knife skills, or constantly taste for salt. Nope, just follow the instructions in the recipe. Easy. Baking a cake is much easier than making a killer entree.

Cake mixes require, and please correct me if I'm wrong, adding 3 or so ingredients to the mix, then putting it in a pan and baking it. Baking a cake from scratch adds a few more ingredients (but not that many more) and creates a much more delicious end product with many fewer chemicals.

Example. The internet tells me that Betty Crocker "super moist" chocolate cake mix contains: Sugar, Enriched Flour Bleached (Wheat Flour, Niacin, Iron, Thiamin Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Partially Hydrogenated Soybean and/or Cottonseed Oil, Cocoa Processed with Alkali, Modified Corn Starch, Corn Starch, Baking Soda, Carob Powder, Propylene Glycol Monoesters of Fatty Acids, Lactose, Salt, Distilled Monoglycerides, Modified Whey, Artificial Color, Sodium Aluminum Phosphate, Dicalcium Phosphate, Monocalcium Phosphate, Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, Monoglycerides, Xanthan Gum, Datem. Artificial Flavor, Aluminum Sulfate.

To that list of unpronounceables one adds vegetable oil, water, and eggs.

Do you even know what half those things are? They don't even bother to break out "artificial flavor".

My grandmother's super moist chocolate cake recipe, by contrast, calls for sugar, butter, eggs, milk, hot water, baking soda, flour, cocoa, and vanilla. 9 ingredients, all of which most of you have in your kitchen already. There are many simpler cake recipes that use fewer ingredients, this is just a compare and contrast.

I'll guarantee you that the "from scratch" cake takes only 5 minutes longer to prepare and tastes much much better.

I feel similarly about cookies and brownies, and please let's not get started on Bisquick for pancakes. Making pancakes from scratch requires flour, baking soda, milk, and an egg. Oh, and a dash of salt, and of course butter or oil for the griddle. Making pancakes from Bisquick does not save any time, and I'll put my pancakes next to yours any day. Plus then you have a big yellow box in your cupboard when you could just have flour.

Look, I'm all for laziness. I eat the occasional frozen dinner. But if you're going to make cake, it might as well taste delicious.

Oh, and frosting? It does not come from a can. It comes from mixing confectioners sugar with milk and butter. Or any number of other 3 ingredient options.