The Duncan Hines Brownie Mix and Other Processed Delights!

[jarona]

OK. So yesterday daughter has cramps--and what better way than some chocolate baked brownies to heal the wounds! So I get ready to bake and she says: "Can't you just make the Duncan Hines Brownie Mix? You know they are my favorite!". Silly me! This got me to thinking...I will search recipes high and low for the perfect cookie, cake, pie, tart and brownie. And the kids still love the Duncan Hines Brownie Mix the best (have to admit--it IS nice and chewy!). The same for Mac & Cheese--nothing like a home-made scrumptious, gooey mac and cheese--but the kids still will crave for the old Kraft Mac & Cheese every now and then.

How bout you? We all realize we are all foodies--but you got a favorite processed dish? I would love to hear about it!

[jazzy77]

I think that my biggest sin in the processed food category has to be the boxed brownie mix baked chewy and iced with white icing from those little plastic pots above the cake mixes - topped with ground up butterfinger candy bars. I can eat about an inch size square and feel in need of an insulin shot afterward, but it takes me right back to my childhood at summertime. It's one of the only childhood dishes I haven't felt were better left to nostalgia.

[somervilleoldtimer]

I too love Lipton onion soup mix dip, and I'm finally old enough not to be embarrassed by it. I think it's a part of life.

I am a baker, and I have discovered what I think is by far the best brownie mix. It's Ghiradelli Double Chocolate Brownie mix. I make a double batch and bake it in a 9 x 13 pan, so it's thick and chewy. The mix has chocolate chips in it. I add a hefty dollop of good vanilla, throw it in the oven, and people love them!

[Agent Orange]

Yep. Can't get much better than Ghiradelli's Double Chocolate for brownies. I, too, like to pimp them a bit with vanilla and coffee. It's all I can do to keep from devouring the whole pan in one day.

[roxlet]

IMHO, I can always taste the chemicals in these mixes, though as a kit, I thought that Duncan Hines was the best of the bunch...

[Antilope]

Lipton Dry Onion Soup Mix and sour cream to make onion dip.

[geminigirl]

must admit I just made this for New Year's Eve. I grew up on this stuff dipped with corn chips and it is still my favorite...I love Ina's onion dip, but there is something comforting about that packet of lipton soup mix....

[themis]

Yellow cake mix is practically a miracle food, to me. I am admittedly not much of a baker, but I am wholly skeptical of friends' claims that a scratch cake can duplicate that sweet, buttery flavor.

Yesterday, I had a bag of cranberries in the crisper to use up and remembered a friend's cranberry sauce cake recipe. I cooked the cranberries into a simple sauce, chilled them in an ice bath, and stirred that into yellow cake mix with two eggs, baked it at 350 for 35 min in a greased bundt pan.

Oh my god. So good -- tangy and moist.

[chowser]

LOL, as someone who prefers my cakes from scratch, I'm also wholly skeptical of anyone who claims they can duplicate cake made from a mix. A home cook can't duplicate this list (Betty Crocker which was rated the best mix by CI):

Sugar, Enriched Flour Bleached (Wheat Flour, Niacin, Iron, Thiamin Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Partially Hydrogenated Soybean and/or Cottonseed Oil, Modified Corn Starch, Propylene Glycol Monoesters of Fatty Acids, Baking Soda, Salt, Sodium Aluminum Phosphate, Dextrose, Monocalcium Phosphate, Distilled Monoglycerides, Dicalcium Phosphate, Maltodextrin, Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, Datem, Monoglycerides, Xanthan Gum, Natural and Artificial Flavor, Aluminum Sulfate, Yellow 5&6, Nonfat Milk.

[wineos]

Guilty! I am not a baker - and love the brownie mix, cake mix and icing..there is something comforting about them for me.

With that said, I have never served my kids Kraft Mac and Cheese - blech! I always tell myself they don't need to know any different.

[sequins]

Bette Crocker's Creamy Butter mashed-potato mix -- added to (rather in place of) real potatoes (I prefer red bliss) and extra-thickened with some heavy cream -- quite nearly reproduces on earth my platonic ideal of Mashed Potatoes.

[dolores]

jarona, have you tried Trader Joe's truffle chocolate (or chocolte truffle) brownie mix? It is really a lot better than Duncan Hines.

There is always a place for processed foods in my life. Science is wonderful.