The Betty Crocker Effect

https://sketchplanations.com/the-betty-crocker-effect

by 2a0c40 • 5 years ago

2 3 5 years ago

eesmith• 5 years ago

It's wasn't Betty Crocker.

The powdered egg effect for cake mixes is from the Duff and Sons, 1930s - https://www.bonappetit.com/entertaining-style/pop-culture/ar... .

You can read their 1933 patent application (Patent #: US002016320) at https://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?docid=02016320&SectionNum=3&ID... .

Column 1, starting at line 22.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20171027-the-magic-cakes-... gives more context to the story, giving it a different slant:

But the eggs may only have been part of cake mix's success. “I think it was frosting,” she says. When premade frosting and elaborate decorations came in, turning focus away from the substance of the cake, and onto its exterior, that may have really given the idea legs. We all want to have a way to demonstrate our love, and frosting – as a way turn a simple cake into a castle, a football field, a church – brought that. “And that, I think, is what changed the fate of cake mixes,” she says.

ksaj• 5 years ago

Your first link mentions the Betty Crocker connection, but well into the article and only briefly. It also directly supports your first line objection.

"Dichter did work with General Mills’ Betty Crocker brand, but that wasn’t till the 1950s. It's a tale even Michael Pollan falls for."

Interestingly, after the cake mixes lost popularity, it was the frosting or icing, and magazine articles and books showing how to decorate cakes to look like works of art. So calling it the Betty Crocker Effect misses the real story on a couple of different levels.

Creativity was the icing on the cake, as it were.

Pick-A-Hill2019• 5 years ago

Thanks for posting this - I almost posted a slightly better / different link to a Betty Crocker Effect page [1] but checked the comments first and TIL, Snopes (FWIW) agrees that your are correct (see [2]).

[1] https://medium.com/@mukri2/betty-crocker-add-an-egg-248dce3d...

[2] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/something-eggstra/

The Betty Crocker Effect

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