the hunt for a decent cake mix

Talking with Poonam last night, she said she was on her way to a party and was bringing cupcakes. Cupcakes! I hadn’t made cupcakes in years, and the thought of getting sprinkles and icing all over Jon’s clean, new kitchen was too irresistible to pass up. When searching through the grocery store baking aisle, though, I got increasingly frustrated. Every cake mix and icing I found had partially hydrogenated oil, which I try to avoid. Duncan Hines, Betty Crocker, and Pillsbury all listed it. I was only checking chocolate cake mixes and frosting, but I doubt their other flavors would be PHO-free, either. It seems anymore every label I check at the supermarket has the stuff. It’s in the weirdest places sometime, too, like in a particular brand of sprinkles I looked at last night. Honestly, sprinkles need oil? I was under the impression they were basically little balls of colored sugar. I guess some companies make little balls of oily colored sugar–yum! Anyway, Kroger’s store brand of Devil’s Food cake mix and fudge icing was PHO-free, so I went with it. Jon was a little leery because it listed lard as an ingredient in one of them and beef fat in the other (I think the icing), but I’d rather eat animal bits than dangerously processed oils.

Every time I see partially hydrogenated oil or monosodium glutamate listed as an ingredient, I put the item back on the shelf. I wish food manufacturers would stop using both of those. If I see an item that looks especially appealing and I’m all set to buy it, then check the ingredients list and see one of those chemicals, my reaction is usually “sorry guys, I would’ve bought your product but now I can’t–you just lost a sale.”