Do Americans really use packet cake mix as much as recipes suggest?

[breatheslowly]

I keep on seeing recipes that involve packet cake mix. I know you can buy it here, but I am not aware of anyone using it here in the UK. Do Americans really use it?

Frogs,

Tip mix into bowl
Add oil, water and a beaten egg
Mix with 50 strokes
Pour into pan and put in oven.

No creaming or folding to be seen.

My English teacher was from the US and made an amazing Devils food cake from scratch. He always went on about needing special 'cake flour' that could only be obtained in the States!

I live in The Netherlands and they use mixes for everything here too. My supermarket has about 10 different bread mixes, but no strong (type 0) flour.

For posters needing whipping or double cream, I've found that whipped up marscapone (with or without sugar/ vanilla), or a mixture of marscapone and single cream does the job. Perfect on scones with jam!

Well, this is all anonymous so I will admit that I have bought baked unfrosted layers at the bakery and then used my own frosting.

Ok dim question here
I've always assumed that Mac and cheese is what we call macaroni cheese (except made with plastic cheese) is it not?
Isn't it the easiest thing in the world to make. It's my go to for the children when I can't be arsed. If it's not of course then it all makes sense

I used a muffin mix for a school bake sale. They were bloody delicious and looked and tasted home made!

Southern style mac and cheese doesn't have plastic cheese (perish the thought!) or involve making a white sauce. It's the only kind of mac and cheese I like.

www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Southern-Style-Macaroni-and-Cheese

No one makes mac and cheese like a Southerner (or someone trained by one). It is heaven on a plate.

I thought mac and cheese was what Americans call macaroni cheese.

1 Make cheese sauce, with butter, flour, cheese, milk (and whole grain mustard yum!)
2 Cook pasta.
3 Combine in a baking dish, sprinkle with a bit more cheese and bake for about 25 minutes.

That's how I make macaroni cheese.

Baking is not a science, what you need are simple, basic recipes that can be relied on. I use one muffin recipe to make all sorts, I just change the flavouring

So yes it is what I know as macaroni cheese
Why would one buy it in a box?

(I got the plastic cheese bit from pinterest)

I grew up in the US. Most people I knew who used mixes just never did much baking, so never had the ingredients at home. It's much cheaper to buy a mix if you don't already have the flour, sugar, baking powder, etc, and are only making a cake as a one-off thing.

I always baked from scratch (except the Jiffy corn muffins) and it was always very easy to get any of the ingredients I needed without resorting to mixes. I am currently finding searching for recipes online very frustrating because they all want cream of something soup or some such thing.

Sittingbull, it is actually quite easy to make clotted cream as long as you can get proper fresh full-cream (or gold top) milk- my mum sometimes does it.

basically, in the evening you pour creamy milk into a pan( as wide a base one as you have space for conveniently), leave it overnight, just in the kitchen not the fridge, till you get around to it the next day, and then put the pan over a really, really low heat (the coolest back part of the cooking range, in my mum's case) for a good few hours until it forms a thick yellow crust. Then leave it again until it is cool. Ta-da! You have made clotted cream! Scoop your cream off the milk layer below, put in a bowl in the fridge and it will keep for a few days.

You can use the skimmed milk you have left over in cooking- preferably to make some scones or splits of course, then you have a cream tea!

Macaroni cheese in a box is enough macaroni for two servings and a packet of cheese powder. Boil macaroni, drain, dump in powder, add milk, butter and stir. Instant cheese sauce.

Then when I was at university, they made it microwavable. Because boiling pasta takes too long.

MOST bakeries in the uk use packet mixes for their cakes.

Cake flour isn't available in the UK because the bleaching process that is used to make it is illegal here.

My friend lives in the US. They do a bring and share thanksgiving lunch at her inlaws. She cooks lovely looking things from scratch and they all bring packet stuff. Hers are treated with suspicion and often left at the end of the meal.

Hello all. I am an American living in the UK. Ive been here 8 years. I can tell you that in america in every grocery store baking aisle is at least 100 varieties of boxed cake mixes. Growing up in the usa my mother never once made us a cake from scratch. It was always boxed and you add oil and eggs. No one Ive ever known in the USA ever made a cake with basic ingredients. I dont think many americans know that they can make a cake with butter sugar eggs and flour!!! I didnt until i moved to the UK. Haha yes Im guilty. And no one EVER makes icing. That is always bought and its very sickly. You will notice a lot of American recipes are for "casseroles" which are just a lazy attempt to cook by thowing together premade ingredient like "1 can of cream of chicken soup, 1 can of tuna, 1 can of peas, and some boiled noodles. Lol. In the USA that would be considered mamas coveted favorite recipe passed down to her daughters. Top secret ingredients! Here in the UK we wouldn't feed that to a stray dog. My mom who lives in Florida recently emailed me some recipes and it made me giggle because they were so mindboggling easy. Since I've been in the UK i have started really cooking and the more complex the recipe the better i find. And I love cooking with fresh herbs that i grow. If I haven't spent at least 1.5 hours making something it makes me feel lazy. I make everything, I dont even buy store bought bread. Ive realised that cooking anything from a box or a jar including sauces is not really cooking. Its just throwing together things other people cooked. Its full of added sugars, corn syrup, preservatives, etc... Now you know why Americans are so fat and unhealthy. They cook with premade ingredients and do everything out of boxes and jars. Ive never met an American who made spaghetti and actually made the sauce. Always a jar! But that is the culture over there. Fat, dumb and lazy. Funny thing is when I moved here i was sad i couldn't have cornbread again because they dont sell my favourite boxed cornbread mix here. Then i discovered all it is is semolina flour butter milk eggs and a bit of sugar. DOH!!

I grew up cooking in American but in the UK. There's a different taste to the US mixes, so my mum would buy them in America and use them for special occasions. 10 years ago I filled a holdall with stuff I bought in New York - two suits, other clothes, 10 cake mixes especially Yellow which you couldn't get here then and tastes of Easter to me,pecans and unsweetened chocolate. My family do cook from scratch loads, especially being raised on farms, but special cake = mix.

They last ages and don't go off in the heat - so in the 50s-70s before fridges were common, not needing butter was good. Also if you live two hours from the nearest store and only shop once a month, chances of running out of an ingredient are higher than a two-ingredient mix+oil, though I'd always use the ones where you add your own egg too. And the store might not have spices etc.

They do save time - I find getting stuff outo and making cake and in the oven and putting stuff away takes about 45 minutest even without dd 'helping', but yesterday I made two mix cakes (5 pans) in under 20 - and most of that was getting two of the first cakes out the pans and washing and re-using them.

For reference Betty Crocker and Duncan Hints mixes are pretty good. Dr Oetker is just a bit odd - trying to avoid discouraged-in-EU chemicals, probably.

The frosting-in-a-tub by Betty Crocker or anyone else is horrible. I don't even use it for school cake sales.

I grew up on the Betty Crocker cook book (basically a fictional Delia), where about two of thirty cake recipes started with a mix. A few other recipes used packets unavailable here (deviled ham required a can of deviled ham, triggering quite the attack of abuse when homesick mum wanted some. She improvised with Spam and chili and gherkins and garlic etc). And the classic casserole with tinned soup, but otherwise an excellent cookbook.

Pumpkins grown for carving aren't nearly as tasty as ones grown to eat. I would roast my jack o'lantern but there's not much flesh on it. To make a pumpkin pie, even people who never buy ready-prepped stuff will just get a can of Libby's pumpkin puree and follow the instructions. Mm mm. ..

I wonder how an American Bake Off would go down? Would it be mixes or scratch cakes! (Have to say the Bake Off in Britain did increase the amount of people actually baking).

As a side macaroni cheese is the food of the devil shudders

Kristen19745533, do you have a recipe for corn bread? I've always wanted to try it. One day I'm going to the States; I've a list of things I need to do. Foodwise it's eat corn bread, discover what grits are, and buy a giant can of ham and one of those MASSIVE packets of crisps (well OK chips) that are the same size as me.

Mac and cheese is the American equivalent of the Pot Noodle. Lasts as long and equally impossible to eat when sober.

Zombie thread.

From 2013.

I have on occasion used M and S chocolate cake mix when I have needed to bake something quickly for work the next day and have had a very limited amount of time.

DH makes lovely pancakes using this Nigella recipe.