How Apricot Nectar Improves a Boxed Cake Mix
It is amazing what you can learn when you try a recipe from the 1950s.
Cake mixes were invented in the 1930s but became widespread after World War II. Women went to work in the factories during the war and continued to work outside of their homes when the war ended. Making meals was somehow still the responsibility of women even when they were also holding down a full-time job. Even farmwives, who worked all day in fields and gardens, came in to cook for their families. At least, this is the way it was in my family. They needed faster options to feed their families so turned to boxed mixes and canned soups.
As the use of cake mixes continued through the years, creative cooks began adding to the boxed mixes. Part of this, I suspect was guilt about not baking cakes from scratch. Another part of it was simply making the cakes unique.
As long as you added something anything else, even another mix like pudding or jello, you could call it homemade. The cook had a product of her kitchen.
There are now hundreds of recipes on the internet that use a pre-packaged mix as a base. You can find everything from pudding cakes to cookies that start as a cake mix.
