In 1949, the listeners of NBC’s The Light of the World heard announcer Stuart Metz reveal some shocking results on a radio commercial. Husbands and wives competed against each other in cake baking contests from coast to coast. Since the wives were experienced in baking and husbands couldn’t boil water without botching it up, each contest was predicted to be a rout in favor of the wives. As it turned out, it was indeed a rout, but the wives didn’t win! In a stunning upset in comparison to the American hockey team beating the Russians in the 1980 Olympics, the husbands came up with the superior cakes. The husbands all won, but they also cheated. They had help from General Mills and their latest discovery, Betty Crocker Party Cake Mix.
The contests might be considered unfair, because the wives had to make their cakes the only way cakes were made at the time, completely from scratch. That meant mixing together the right amount of ingredients, combined with considerable time, elbow grease, and a lot of dishes. All the husbands needed was a box of Betty Crocker Party Cake Mix, water, 2 eggs, a bowl, and a mixer.
In breaking down what’s inside a regulation Betty Crocker Cake Mix, its ingredients weren’t much different from the ones the wives put in their cakes made from scratch. For starters, each Betty Crocker Cake Mix contained Softasilk Cake Flour. The wives also used Softasilk (or another brand of cake flour if preferred) in their special cake recipes. Betty Crocker Cake Mix also contained a special shortening made specifically for cake making. The wives also added Crisco, Spry, or another brand of shortening in their recipes.
Betty Crocker Cake Mix had the overall advantage, because the cake flour and shortening were already pre-measured in the box. In addition, the ingredients were blended together more accurately for a quality cake that equaled or surpassed a cake made from scratch.
Although the husbands came out the winners in the coast-to-coast contests, the commercial’s main idea was to prove there was an easier way to bake a great tasting cake without the mess and time of making one from scratch. In using any of the 3 different Betty Crocker Cake Mixes (Party Cake, Devils Food Cake, and Ginger Cake), the housewives began a new era in cooking and baking as the modern 1950s were fast approaching.
The husbands vs. wives contests also proved that anyone, whether or not they knew what they were doing in the kitchen, could come up with a quality cake at a moment’s notice.
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