Baking/cooking from scratch far superior

Feels like I've just been given a lecture!

I mostly make from scratch except for dumplings. Try as I might, mine always turn out solid and heavy whereas they’re light and fluffy using a ready mix. I also use frozen pastry unless I’m making a lot of apple pies at harvest time. Then it’s out with the food processor and the flour and fat, I like Trex or butter and lard half and half. Otherwise the washing up from homemade pastry is just a bit too much.
By the way I’m not at all offended by the OPs post, she was just trying to be helpful I believe,

Three rather sad bananas looking forlorn are now in two cakes in the oven.

To anyone having trouble cooking or baking gluten-free, I recommend the books and recipes by Becky Excell, she is brilliant! On Facebook, or search www.Glutenfreecuppatea.

SueDonim
I didn’t take offence at the OP, just thought it was her opinion. I don’t bake much, only at Christmas or birthdays, because I like cake too much! I never make pastry. But I do cook/bake with DGD (she takes it home!) and almost always cook from scratch. But life is too short never to take shortcuts. Or take offence.

nanna8

My Yorkshire Mum used to make Yorkshire puds as a flat pancake you had with gravy before the main meal. Here they are little things about 8 cm high served with the roast.

A friend calls any failed Yorkshire puddings Lancashire biscuits.

No one knows other peoples circumstances. This poster thinks they are wonderful because they bake from scratch. Many people don’t have the ingredients to hand or the skills. Very judgemental. Get over yourself!
God bless Aunt Bessie!

Hurrah for Aunt Bessie !

I dont usually take too much 'umbrage' but OP did sound a bit 'smirkily superior' over those who might choose, for whatever reason, to use a mix.Including to the point of even getting her daughter to use one to test her theory.Im sure her daughters cake was nice too. 🤔

I mostly cook from scratch but not exclusively. If I make a cake, or brownies, from a packet, I add a couple of teaspoons of black treacle and the chemical taste is no more! I'm wheat and gluten free so I have to be creative as the flours I use are not always easy to work with.

We make all our meals from scratch, but baking? Not if I can help it. My sponge cakes are flat, my mince pies are awful. In any case, cakes are full of sugar and carbs and not good for us. DH is diabetic and I don’t need to put on any more weight. But I do enjoy ( and can make) a good fruit cake.

Both options have their place. With a family of six I baked like mad for years - huuuge tray bakes - almond and sultana was the favourite 😂 With just the two of us now I bake less. I did used to enjoy the quick easy fun of a pack of instant fairy cakes with the children though - you literally just added water, baked used the enclosed icing added the rice paper decoration and Voila! They had created a masterpiece! (Last sticky, least attractive one always kept for Dad for later😂😂). The whole process was quick enough to keep little ones engaged, and simple enough so they could do all the mixing and icing themselves. The other day for no particular reason I fancied making us a chocolate cake and rather than buying all the bits I did look at the Cadbury cake mixes - but they were very expensive and you still needed to add eggs,milk, sugar you name it...so I didn't bother! But, as others have said there's a place for all ways of doing things.

Good post Elegran.
I make cakes from scratch with DGC. If they’re not around, there’s not much point in baking cakes, however delicious they are. We’d willingly eat them but they’d add to our dimensions.
I make short crust pastry from scratch, but all other pastry is from frozen. Anyone else remember learning the tedious process of making rough puff pastry and flaky pastry at school?

When we were in Greece my husband fancied Yorkshire puddings and bought back a mix from the Brit shop! I fell over laughing when it said add eggs and milk. Basically just flour then!!

nanna8

My Yorkshire Mum used to make Yorkshire puds as a flat pancake you had with gravy before the main meal. Here they are little things about 8 cm high served with the roast.

My Yorkshire DMIL used to make them like that, nanna8, and you’d get a big slice covered in onion gravy served before your meat and veg. I think the idea was originally to fill you up so you didn’t need too much meat, but it was also very practical, as you’d more room on your plate for all the veggies and sauces.

We don't eat cakes and the only time I bake is with the DGC, where the whole point is to show them how to do it from scratch.

I certainly find it odd when I read on a packet of pancake "mix" that you have to add milk and eggs, which surely only leaves the flour and possibly a pinch of salt.

My Yorkshire Mum used to make Yorkshire puds as a flat pancake you had with gravy before the main meal. Here they are little things about 8 cm high served with the roast.

I’m not at all offended or irritated by the OP’s comments, and they’re a good talking point. I like to cook cakes from scratch and do think they taste much better than packet mixes or shop bought, though they possibly cost more because I use quality ingredients. Pancakes too - I wouldn’t use a mix (wouldn’t use SR flour either though). But I buy frozen pastry and Yorkshire puddings simply because they’re quick and easy and I really think they’re better than what I produce. It’d take a lot to convince me that my Yorkshires are anywhere near as good as Aunt Bessie’s!

Sometimes I cook from fresh. Sometimes I use something pre-prepared. Sometimes I use tinned items (red salmon, kidney beans, for example) and sometimes frozen foods (some of which are better than 'fresh' items which have sat on a shelf too long). It depends on how I feel, what time is available and all sorts of factors.

Wholeheartedly agree ENO .I always use that particular devil’s food cake mix and it is always successful. Next I am going to try the coffee one.

I can cook very well, but cannot produce a decent chocolate sponge for a good price without using Betty Crocker’s Devil’s Food Cake mix.

The comments about “shop cakes” made me laugh.
D1 was working for JL in her Gap Year and I realised after everything was shut that she was expecting to take a cake into work the next day.
I threw something together from what I could find in the cupboard and it was OK -it “did”.
A month later it was D2’s birthday and this time I was better prepared and bought her a Colin Caterpillar to take into the Sixth Form common room.
Later I got “She got a home made cake and I only got shop one ” and “She got a Colin Caterpillar and I only got a homemade one”
Can’t win!

Good post, Elegran.

FannyCornforth

DaisyAnne and Marydoll
Your comments have made me want to turn my oven on just for sheer devilment! 😈

And me,*fanny*!

My mum has always been a great home baker, as was her mother before her.

Amongst her close friendship group are a couple who only ever buy shop-bought cake.
Mum often tells of the time when the husband of that couple praised the cake that Mum had just served him, saying that it was as good as anything you could buy in a shop.
The thing is, it wasnt said tongue-in- cheek. He genuinely meant it as it sounded - he was totally astonishment that home-baked could possibly taste as nice as 'proper', shop-bough cake.