Hacker News Reader

Comment by Xylakant | Hacker News Reader

> Mixes are engineered to consistently reach a desired result.

That’s pretty much exactly what I dislike about mixes and ready-made food. It’s not that they’re bad, but they are the same every time. Your pancakes taste like my pancakes. That’s boring. I like tasting other peoples pancakes. I usually stock some ready to eat food for times when cooking is just not and option, but I rarely end up reaching for it.

Also, they’re single use, they can not be disassembled to build something else. With eggs, milk, flour, butter, I can make pancakes - American and German style, Dutch Baby, Kaiserschmarrn, waffles, … A pancake mix is a pancake mix, it’s pancakes, nothing else.

View on HN

Look up Adam reguseas video about why you can never beat a cake mix in your home. Sometimes it’s just smart to use a mix. And as Sagan said, if you wanna make an apple pie from scratch, you’d have to create the fucking universe.

Further, the most important thing to get right in a pancake (imo) is to get the flour baking powder mix right. Why bother with a scale and everything, if you can just buy a premix that is at best marginally more expensive?

Your point about the same thing being used for multiple is semi valid for some people. For the majority of folks, If they want pancakes this week, odds are they’d like it once more at least. Have you seen a pancake mix box? It costs two bucks and will last a single full serving or two for a family with kids.

It's almost as if you can tweak mixes or something.

Seriously, you want to change pancake mix? Use some buttermilk instead of milk. Mix in a bit of sourdough starter. Add some fruit. Cook down a can of fruit with some sugar and lemon juice and make your own syrup. There are tons of things you can do.

If I go to a fancy restaurant that specializes in pancakes, THEN I expect them to do their own thing. But waking up at morning and getting pancakes that someone has prepared for me is better than waking up in the morning and eating a bowl of cereal or a pre-wrapped muffin. MOST people don't have a go-to pancake recipe... they'd just look up and use the first thing they found online that they had ingredients for.

If you have all that on hand why would you not have eggs, flour, and milk as well?

As nobody in my household drinks white milk, I only have it on hand if a recipe specifically calls for it. And I suspect they wouldn’t quite be the same with chocolate milk, of which there is almost always a supply thanks to kids ..

A while back I switched to using powdered buttermilk for this exact reason. It's been a game changer. I used to avoid buttermilk based recipes as I'd need to find excuses to use it up over the next few weeks.

Your post made me realize I'm the same way with milk. I know powdered buttermilk is considered a valid substitute for standard buttermilk when cooking. I wonder if the same is true of powdered milk.

For baking, yes, many recipes can be converted to use powdered milk.

For non-baking used it can be trickier, I believe. The powdered milk doesn't always act the same.

Let’s not get religious about it - it’s food and you do what you do. I’ll eat your pancakes, mix or not. But the parent I was responding to was extolling consistency as a virtue and I don’t consider consistency (as in “tastes the same every time”, as opposed to “tastes great every time”) a great thing.

And if you start adding sourdough to anything, consistency goes straight out the window. At least my sourdough is anything but consistent.

You can straight up use the sour dough starter that you would normally throw away as scallion pancake mix. Seriously, just pour it onto a greased pan and throw scallions on the other side, then flip and cook til done.

Yes, I know. But my point was that sourdough, at least the one I keep, are living things and are not consistently the same. Mine depends on the time I kept it in the fridge, the temperature it’s kept outside (which depends on the weather), on how active the last generation was and many other factors I have more or less under control. And that manifests in taste difference, raising power etc.

I would assume mixing in buttermilk for milk would mess things up since it messes with the acid ratios, which is one of the things that really matters in baked goods with chemical leavening agents. Usually something with only milk would use baking powder, whereas something with buttermilk would use some portion of baking soda.

100%. I used to cook a lot from scratch. I had a few things that I made a lot and knew how to balance the flavors of. Then when I suddenly found myself with a lot less time to cook, but still with the same picky taste buds, I started buying premade, prepackaged TV dinners from Publix and Whole Foods and doctoring them up with added spices, or chopping an onion or pepper to add to it, after microwaving them for half the time to defrost them.

Like, you can buy anything and make it good.

That's not a mix problem, that a you problem. You can very easily customize and build on top of a solid base. Add fruits (berries, banana, etc), add chocolate chips, nuts, etc. Add cocoa powder, cinnamon, etc.

The powder is just a base.

A lot of (american) pancake mixes can be used for both pancakes and waffles, but your point stands about other similar preparations.

But I would say that while it's true that the pancakes will be the same every time with a mix, I don't really eat pancakes enough for that to matter.

Your pancakes taste like my pancakes. That’s boring. I like tasting other peoples pancakes.

Then again, some people just want to make reasonably good pancakes for their kids or before heading off to work, without too much thought or effort. Or having to be "creative" or think about how they compare with other people's pancakes. Are you OK with that?

Look, I’m not advocating banning pancake mixes or canned or frozen food. I absolutely understand that people have constraints and not everyone has the time or energy to cook every day. I just say that I personally, don’t consider “it consistently produces the same result.” a good thing in all cases. Are you OK with that?

That's great, of course. Bon appetit.

I was just trying to get back to the point of the original article.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com