Duncan Hines and Betty Crocker – and the things I never knew.

See, I assumed that Betty Crocker was a real person, a lady that was good at making cakes and took her cake recipe to all of us.

Wrong.

I also thought Duncan Hines was a company made up of two people: Mr. Hines and Mr. Duncan.

Nope – wrong again !

And here’s the thing – both of these started off as advice kind of things and moved on to now being the most famous cake mixes.

So …. Here’s the story.

Forgive me if I am mistaken on specific details.

Duncan Hines was an actual real person. And, while he enjoyed food, he wasn’t a baker or a cook of any kind.

Far from it.

Duncan Hines was kind of a nerd.  He was a traveling salesman for a printer in the Chicago area and he loved traveling and eating at places. 

Duncan kept a little notebook where he wrote down places he ate and made notes about things he liked and didn’t like at these restaurants.

He developed a reputation amongst his friends and family and people began asking him where would be a good place to eat at a place they were traveling.

So Duncan began to take his note taking a little more seriously and began referring people to his favorite places.

He had so many notes that he decided he’d write a book highlighting places he enjoyed.  He called it, “Adventures in Good Eating” 

He self published it in 1937 and he sold them for $1.  He didn’t do this as a money making enterprise, but rather, to publish the names and addresses of places he enjoyed frequenting.

It quickly became a hit and he later published a 2^nd edition.

Signs even began spouting up in businesses he mentioned – “Duncan Hines Approved”.

Well … there was a gentleman (who’s name I can’t recall) that had organized a large group of farmers in the Midwest to try and increase profitability for their small farms, as many small farms had begun being bought up by large conglomerates.  This gentleman heard a commercial and thought, “Hey, if we could get a big sponsor, perhaps we could grow pretty big too”.  They needed a name people trusted.

They were in competition with Betty Crocker for their baking products.

               *Side Note 1 – More on Betty Crocker in a bit

So they approached Duncan Hines.  He was trusted and his opinion mattered to people.

But Duncan was hesitant.  In fact, his initial reaction was, “Not interested”.  He had his reputation and in his world, his reputation mattered more than anything.

But Duncan agreed to this product endorsement if he had final say on whether the product met his approval.

It did take a while, but they came up with an instant cake mix that met his approval and the signature “Duncan Hines” was put on the box – and it flew off the shelves.

The competition  for their cake mix was Betty Crocker and General Mills.

It started innocently when a person needed cooking advice and asked General Mills a question.  General Mills jumped on this and created a character known as ‘Betty Crocker’ and hundreds and then thousands of people wrote letters to General Mills and their advice giver, Betty Crocker.  It went from cooking tips to actual advice.

See, it was the 1920s and baking cakes was extravagant.  Ovens were primitive in nature and measuring cups weren’t always the same.  Ingredients were tough to mix correctly and eating cake was a very special occasion.   Cakes were difficult to make and most of the problems in these letters to Betty Crocker involved making cake.

Now, there was an actual person that played the role of Betty Crocker and she took it upon herself to help ladies trying to make cakes at home.  She researched the General Mills recipe files and came across BisQuick, which was a big seller for General Mills.  She thought if they could make an instant biscuit mix why not make an instant cake mix.

It took some time and took many batches of mix, but they finally came upon a recipe that worked.

With Betty Crocker, all you needed was water.  General Mills was riding the wave of their fictional character Betty Crocker.

               *Side Note 2 – Betty Crocker even got dozens of marriage proposals.  Maybe these guys were lonely, or maybe they were just hungry.

Betty Crocker was the trusted name and became an icon in the 1920s and 1930s and even today, people think there was an actual woman named Betty Crocker that invented her cake mix.  But in 1945, Fortune Magazine outed General Mills and their creation of this mythical icon.  General Mills thought they were in trouble.

But even then, it didn’t hurt the brand.

General Mills just sat back and weathered the storm, which really wasn’t a storm at all.

My guess is that Fortune Magazine was mostly read by men in the 1940s and they couldn’t care less.  Fortune Magazine also didn’t do a follow up on the story, it was printed and done and mostly forgotten.  Social media wasn’t around and the story didn’t get a lot of traction.

There was one big difference between Betty Crocker and Duncan Hines.  I mean, aside from one being a real person and the other being a boardroom creation.

With Betty Crocker cake mix you only needed to add water.  But with Duncan Hines you needed to add your own eggs and vegetable oil.

Many women at home preferred using real eggs and adding their own oil, it made it feel like they were truly baking.

Now that I know the real story, I’m a Duncan Hines guy.

I don’t like that General Mills and Betty Crocker tried to get one over on us.

Marie Antoinette had nothing on these boxed cake mixes.

• Seriously