[dramatic music]
- [Narrator] Birthday.
Wedding.
Graduation.
Retirement, or simply a Sunday dinner,
Americans seize any opportunity-
[dramatic music] to add cake.
- Cake is arguably one of the most iconic foods
that we know in America today.
I mean, think about the way it's presented,
at the end of the meal in this sort of grandiose way,
like a beautiful finale.
- It looks like a party unto itself, and I think
whenever you bake a cake,
it tends to be a celebratory occasion.
- [Narrator] Today, the global cake market
is worth nearly $43 billion,
and Americans consume a billion cakes each year.
[dramatic music]
But until the 1940s,
cake was far from the staple it is today.
- Cake was something that was extremely special
and extremely rare.
It was something only for special occasions,
like birthdays and weddings.
You might have it once or twice a year,
unless you were very, very wealthy.
- [Narrator] But America's relationship with cake
will be redefined by two most unlikely figures.
- Duncan Hines was a traveling salesman.
He traveled around, selling things you find in the office
like pencils, pens, and stationery.
- Betty Crocker's not a real person,
but she's been presented to the public in various forms
of media as this person who is creating
these wonderful baked goods for you to then make at home.
- [Narrator] Both names will forever change
the way America celebrates,
making fresh homemade cakes part of our everyday lives.
[dramatic music]
[pounding muscular music]
[pounding music continues]
In the first few decades of the 20th century,
baking a cake at home is not an easy option
for most Americans.
- We didn't have any kind of non-stick bakeware,
so you already had issues with the product adhering
to the actual pan you were baking it in.
Ovens had profoundly inconsistent temperatures.
- And unlike today, flour was not uniform.
It was not milled the same.
A bag of flour from one company
wouldn't be exactly the same as the other.
Units of measurement were not standardized
until the 1940s.
So a cup from a recipe might mean
a cup from Grandma's cupboard,
or it might mean an actual cup.
And if you couldn't bake the way you wanted to
or the way other people wanted you to,
that could really be a blow.
- [Narrator] But the wheels are about to be set in motion
for a seismic shift in American home baking.
[dramatic music]
[mellow music]
In the years following World War I,
the Washburn Flour Mill, who makes Gold Medal flour,
find themselves stuck with a product surplus.
- American farmers and manufacturers were tasked
with producing as much flour as possible
so they could feed American soldiers
and our allies overseas in the war efforts.
Now, when the war comes to a close,
that need rapidly diminishes and these manufacturers
and farmers are left with this massive surplus.
[soft music]
- [Narrator] Washburn executive Samuel Gale has been tasked
with creating a promotion to help boost sales.
- So, Samuel Gale is the Department Manager
of the advertising department for Washburn and Crosby.
And he's got this idea to promote Gold Medal flour
with a puzzle contest.
- They ran an ad, which involved putting pieces
of a jigsaw puzzle together,
and that was published in newspapers and magazines.
- You could send this completed puzzle back
and you would receive a free pin cushion
that resembled a tiny bag of Gold Medal flour.
- They got thousands of responses.
- [Narrator] But to Gale's surprise,
many of the puzzle responses include something else,
letters from housewives.
- They had questions about baking,
which was so full of uncertainty.
These were women all over America,
who had suddenly had access to a flour company,
somebody who was supposed to understand flour and baking,
so there was somebody to ask.
- Things like, "Why isn't my cake rising?"
- "Why does my cake always fail?'
"Why does my bread have a weird crack across the top?"
[pages crinkling] [soft music]
- [Narrator] Seeing a new opportunity to engage consumers,
Gale decides that they should answer each letter
they receive.
- But Gale thought that the reply shouldn't come from him
or from anyone on the all- male advertising department.
He thought it should come from a woman.
- But how on earth do you find this incredibly culinarily
talented housewife who has the cooking chops
to sort of be the burning bush
where all the other housewives look for inspiration,
for advice, for direction?
So Sam Gale realizes, "I know how I could find this person.
I'll invent her."
- So he decides he can create this fictional,
idealized female homemaker, this perfect person.
[dramatic music]
- So they chose the name Betty Crocker.
Betty, because it was a friendly, homey kind of name.
- The last name came from William Crocker,
a recently retired, well-respected and liked
General Mills executive.
[suspenseful music]
- And they had a contest with all the female employees
to have them sign Betty Crocker's signature,
and they settled on one.
An employee named Florence provided her signature,
and then she quickly had to train all sorts of people
in how to sign her signature.
- [Narrator] The company hires a team of home economists
to represent Betty and names the department Home Services.
- And they did establish that every single letter
sent to Betty Crocker would be met with a return letter.
And that built trust.
- [Narrator] The head of the department
is 31-year-old Marjorie Hustead.
- Marjorie Hustead was a college graduate,
went right into this sort of culinary workforce
right after graduation,
and she had worked in marketing and advertising
for a macaroni company, so she understood how to market food
and she understood how to communicate with consumers.
Not to mention she knew how to cook her ass off.
- Marjorie Hustead went into Washburn-Crosby
with a strong sense of how to communicate with home cooks.
- The women who were writing in had no reason
to believe she wasn't real.
The letters were personalized,
they were lengthy and handwritten and signed,
"Cordially yours."
Betty Crocker was becoming a household name.
- [Narrator] By 1930, after merging
with four other flour mills,
Washburn-Crosby takes on a new name, General Mills.
- So, once Gold Medal is brought into General Mills,
those folks start to see all the letters,
the thousands of letters coming in to Betty Crocker, right?
And they think, "Wow, this presents an opportunity.
So how do we really bring it up to the next level?"
- They thought, "Well, why don't we give the
Home Service department their own radio show
and we can have Betty Crocker go on the air?"
- [Narrator] By the early '30s,
Marjorie Hustead is given a new role
as the voice of Betty Crocker.
- In the early 1900s, radio was the number one
form of entertainment for America.
- There was a time when radio was all there was.
People said later that the, it was the radio that kind of
made Betty Crocker.
- Marjorie was the brains,
and, for a time, the voice
behind the Betty Crocker radio show.
- So here is Betty Crocker and she's speaking to you.
But the fact that you couldn't see her
adds a really wonderful layer of mysteriousness to her
that only seems to further galvanize her appeal.
- Helen from Iowa writes,
"Dear Betty, I don't know how to make a cake,
but my neighbor does.
Is there danger of her capturing my husband?"
- It was a lot matters of the heart.
For example, Betty Crocker did talk about husbands
and boyfriends and suitors and how to keep your family happy
and what to do when things weren't going well.
- Helen, your husband's devotion is stronger than cake.
Just keep practicing when he's at work
and when his next birthday rolls around,
he'll be in for a huge surprise.
- Betty Crocker was without question,
kind of like the "Dear Abby" of her time.
Women felt connected to her,
and she was also kind of the aspirational homemaker ideal
that they all sought to be.
[dramatic music]
- [Narrator] Inventing Betty was a truly brilliant
feat of marketing,
one that created a trusted name in food.
But Betty's reign will soon be challenged by
the last person anyone could have anticipated.
[suspenseful music]
A thousand miles away,
a traveling salesman finds himself far from home
at a hole-in-the- wall restaurant.
- So what brings you all the way out to these parts?
- Work.
I'm a traveling salesman.
Office supplies, paper clips,
envelope openers, that sort of thing.
- Well, if you'd like to leave a business card
for my manager, maybe he'd need some office supplies.
- Thank you. [dramatic music]
- [Narrator] It's a name that one day will give rise
to a $200 million empire.
[dramatic music]
And be associated throughout the world with fresh-baked cake
and rich, buttery frosting.
[dramatic music]
But for now, he's a struggling salesman,
peddling office supplies across America.
[dramatic music]
[mellow music]
- It's the early 1930s and Duncan Hines,
a traveling salesman,
is thoughtfully jotting down his impressions
on the meal he's just eaten.
- Duncan Hines is a unique character.
He's really just kind of obsessed with food
and wherever he travels,
he's always seeking out the best food.
- Duncan Hines
had no professional culinary experience.
He'd not gone to school to study it.
He had simply enjoyed good cooking.
- He was very picky about where he ate,
and so when he ate at a good restaurant,
he would note it down in a little notebook that he had,
that he carried around with him.
- And in this notebook he would record, of course,
the name, the location.
He was recording prices.
- [Narrator] While Hines is driven by his love for food,
his interest goes beyond the restaurant's menu.
- Oh, and one more thing.
Do you think it'd be alright
if I had a look at the kitchen?
- Let me check, Mr. Hines. - Thank you.
- In the '20s and '30s, restaurant inspections
were few and far between.
He knew that you could get sick,
and sometimes fatally sick, if it was not prepared well.
So sanitation and cleanliness around the preparation
of food was paramount to Duncan Hines.
- [Narrator] Soon, word spreads through family and friends
that Hines is a trusted source
for restaurant recommendations.
- Over the years, this guidebook of his,
this little notebook of his grew and grew and grew,
and everybody wanted to know where these places were
that were sanitary, as well as good food.
People from all walks of life would write him,
wanting to know where the best place to eat in this city
and that city and so forth.
And he was deluged with all these requests for
where the best place to eat was.
- [Narrator] Duncan Hines decides
to self-publish his findings.
- Duncan Hines really believed that there was a place
for this guidebook of good eating,
and this was a crusade that he happily jumped on the horse
and went full force with, because he felt
it was important.
- [Narrator] After an initial investment of $1,113,
he prints 5,000 copies of his list.
He calls it "Adventures in Good Eating"
and charges $1 to cover printing costs.
It has 475 establishments in it
and sells out by the end of the year.
[pleasant music]
- This guy's literally creating a culinary
roadmap for America.
It's pretty amazing.
- He didn't try to fluff it up like a food critic would.
He was giving them basic information about where
to get a good plate of food when they were traveling around.
- It's radical to even think about a world before Yelp
or Google Maps.
- I think Duncan Hines really looked at this as a service.
It was not a moneymaking gimmick for him.
This was something that he crusaded for.
- [Narrator] In 1937, Hines publishes 16,000 copies
of a second edition of "Adventures in Good Eating,"
covering even more restaurants.
- Duncan Hines earned much more than $1 each time
he sold one of his books,
because they experienced the same thing that he did.
From his recommendations, he earned people's trust.
- Suddenly, Duncan Hines was a name
that was familiar coast to coast,
- [Narrator] But he's still a long way
from the thing he's most known for today.
[gentle pulsating music]
By the end of the '30s, Betty Crocker's radio show
has millions of listeners
and Betty's receiving around 5,000 letters a week.
- One of the great fringe benefits
of having Betty Crocker receiving all this mail
was it gave her incredible insight into the cooking plight
of American women at that time.
And for a company, that stuff is pure gold.
- [Narrator] For years, Marjorie has noticed
one particular problem in the kitchen
that plagues more women than anything else.
[dramatic music]
[footsteps]
- Sam, can you guess what at least half of these
are gonna be about?
Baking expectations they can't meet.
Cakes, in particular.
- And they realized there was a lot of pain and anger
and frustration when it came to making cakes.
- Cakes are very hard.
- And that's why they have you.
- What if we could really help them?
What if we gave them a way to make baking a cake foolproof?
- Baking a cake.
It was really considered the Holy Grail
of the homemaking process.
- Cake began to symbolize really a badge of what kind
of homemaker you were, what kind of mother you were.
- Just keep doing what you're doing.
Oh.
They love you.
[pulsating music]
- [Narrator] Determined to find a fail-proof cake recipe,
Marjorie begins digging through
General Mills' recipe archives.
- Bisquick is interesting,
because it's part of what they call the baking mix
world or a complete mix.
So it had flour and some sugar
and a leavening agent inside of it,
so it really simplified baking
and made it much easier for people.
This is especially important during the Great Depression.
- Bisquick promised and delivered, making biscuits
in about 90 seconds by just adding water.
It's easy. It's not as messy.
Anybody can do it, and they turned out pretty good.
- [Narrator] Marjorie Hustead has an idea
to create a similar product,
one that would yield a quick and foolproof cake.
- Sure, just add water to a biscuit. Okay, that's fine.
A biscuit's a side dish. It's not the main attraction.
[dramatic music]
- So Marjorie raised the idea of doing a cake mix
where you just add water,
and people thought she was out of her mind.
[dramatic music]
[suspenseful music]
- [Narrator] By the early '40s, after months of pushing,
Marjorie Hustead has finally convinced General Mills
to invest in what they hope will be a
groundbreaking new product.
A just add water cake mix.
- Moisture is a huge challenge here.
How are you gonna keep that cake moist
and make up for all of that liquid that's been removed?
[suspenseful music]
- Too dry.
- And too flat.
- There is a whole scientific process that goes in
creating flavors, using the scientific method,
running experiments,
and I think we don't necessarily think about food like that.
- Too pungent.
- And still too dry.
- [Narrator] But despite all their efforts,
creating a good cake mix, which requires nothing but water
is beginning to seem impossible.
- Now, how about the powdered eggs?
- The basic way you make a cake is called creaming,
where you cream your butter and sugar together,
and that doesn't just give it flavor,
but it helps your cake rise and the eggs also.
- Too eggy.
- But the texture's getting there.
- They knew that they could put dried eggs into the mix.
However, they also gave the resulting cakes
kind of a weird taste.
It was a little bit of an eggy flavor.
- [Narrator] While the classic vanilla recipes
aren't yet working,
there is a another flavor they're experimenting with.
- Let's try the ginger.
[suspenseful music]
That's it.
[dramatic music]
- Ginger had really gained momentum during the war
because it was versatile,
and you didn't necessarily have to use sugar and eggs in it.
- And that sort of got rid of the
need to add dehydrated eggs.
- [Narrator] Finally, General Mills settles
on a ginger recipe, which doesn't require eggs.
Not only will it be the first boxed cake mix,
it'll be the first Betty Crocker baking product.
[dramatic music]
- Betty Crocker now was gonna be more
than a name and a voice.
She was going to be her own brand.
- [Narrator] And with Betty's name attached to it,
no competitor will be able to come close.
At least, none that exists yet.
[dramatic music]
In Ithaca, New York, Roy Park,
the owner of a small advertising agency,
is looking for a way to save his business.
- Roy Park grew up on a farm in North Carolina,
but quickly realized that farming
wasn't gonna be the path for him.
- After graduating from college, Park gets a job
with a cooperative of cotton farmers,
where he establishes and publishes
the first trade magazine for cotton farmers.
It's only then that he realizes actually
what he's really good at, which is marketing.
- [Narrator] Park now runs his own marketing agency,
which revolves around
a cooperative of small, local farmers.
- His business is based around one large client,
and that's the cooperative of farmers
that are producing corn and wheat.
- [Narrator] The group of farmers Park represents
are increasingly struggling to yield profits,
as more and more farms are bought up
by large conglomerates.
- The flour industry back then is
not much different than now.
Giant flour mills could afford to cut prices
when they had excess inventory,
and the local, smaller flour mills just could not
compete at those low prices.
[tense pulsating music]
- [Narrator] While the co-op's farmers can't lower prices,
they can offer higher quality.
- Roy Park had done some studies where he had found
that housewives were really begrudging about spending money
in the supermarkets on food, but not at a jewelry store.
- [Narrator] Park believes if he could get women
to see higher quality foods as a luxury,
they'd be willing to splurge on higher priced products.
He just needs to find a way to convince them.
- Hi, honey. I'm gonna be at the office 'til late.
I just wanted to call and let you know
that I won't make it home for-
Okay, did I catch you in the middle of something?
- [Mrs. Park] You know not to call me when Betty's on.
- Goodbye.
[Roy sighing]
[knob clicking]
[radio playing]
- Roy Park, being in advertising,
knew that that kind of a trusted, respected voice
was worth its weight in gold.
[dramatic music]
- [Narrator] But what he doesn't know
is that America's trust in Betty Crocker
is about to be shaken when a popular magazine
reveals a long kept secret.
- So General Mills never actively lied
and said Betty Crocker was real,
but they heavily implied it.
- The magazine called her a fraud and a fake.
America just had their trust betrayed
by General Mills. [dramatic music]
[mellow music]
- [Narrator] The General Mills team has been gearing up
to release the Betty Crocker brand's first product,
an instant ginger flavored cake mix,
when they're dealt a devastating blow.
- Marjorie.
- [Narrator] General Mills learns that an article
about Betty will be coming out in Fortune Magazine,
a national publication.
- So for a long time there was this buzz
of rumors about Betty being a fictional character.
[dramatic music]
- So in 1945, Fortune Magazine
publicly outed Betty Crocker.
It said that she wasn't a real person.
It was as if you went to the North Pole
to see the most famous person
and to find out he doesn't live there.
[dramatic music]
- And suddenly, Sam Gale and Marjorie Hustead,
who have poured in countless hours,
countless dollars into creating this entity
of Betty Crocker have no idea what to do,
and they can't do damage control in real time
like we can with social media today.
- General Mills says, "Well,
we never said she was a real person."
And it's really a murky thing in terms
of the American public's perception,
because the reason why they created this character
was for people to go, "Wow, there's an actual person there."
- [Narrator] With that trust now broken,
the Betty Crocker brand faces an uncertain future.
- So all they can do is sit on their hands, check the mail,
and wait to see how this one shakes out.
- [Narrator] While the General Mills team is left waiting
for the fallout, Roy Park sees an opportunity
to strike while the iron's hot.
- America just had their trust betrayed by General Mills,
and they were primed to have someone new to believe in,
someone who they could trust.
- [Narrator] And Park has an idea for the perfect person.
- Duncan Hines was a name that was familiar coast to coast.
Everybody knew the name Duncan Hines.
- Duncan Hines had a bond of trust with the American public.
- [Narrator] Hoping to convince Hines to put his name
behind his client's products, Park creates mockups
to show Hines.
[paper crinkling]
- Look, I appreciate the interest,
but I don't do endorsements.
- He didn't care if he made a lot of money.
So Roy Park developed a pitch that would apply
specifically to Duncan Hines.
- With your endorsement,
these products can make good eating accessible to everyone.
- Roy Parks studied Duncan Hines,
this man who was really fastidious
and he realizes people would try to bribe him.
They would try to offer him money and he was appalled.
His integrity was something
that he held very, very dear to him.
- In a sense, what Roy Park was doing is he was creating
a patriotic touch to this pitch.
- [Narrator] Roy Park manages to talk Duncan Hines
into his first product endorsement
on behalf of his client, the farmer's co-op.
- Duncan Hines recognized that his name would be associated
with good food, as it always had been.
- So Roy Park tells his clients,
"I've just struck up a partnership with Duncan Hines.
Let's work together."
And they're not interested.
But he's got Duncan Hines.
How on earth could they not be interested?
It's Duncan fricking Hines! [hands slap three times]
- [Narrator] And Park knows it's the perfect time to strike.
[dramatic music]
Over at General Mills, the fate of the Betty Crocker brand
hangs in the balance.
- They were just about to launch the cake mix and the brand
when the Fortune Magazine scandal broke.
So now they're waiting to see
what the public reaction's gonna be.
- What's this? Hate mail to Betty?
[suspenseful music]
- Betty Crocker was not a real person,
but she had a heart and she had a soul.
Overall, people just accepted that she seemed real enough.
You gotta see this.
- Everyone in America knew Betty Crocker
was basically a fake,
but America and its women stood by her to the end.
- [Narrator] In 1947, Betty Crocker's boxed ginger cake mix
hits store shelves, requiring nothing more
than a square pan and water.
The mix delivers on its promise for a quick and easy cake.
- The impact of cake mix on the American
kitchen was enormous.
It became absolutely clear that it was going
to have a big effect on how we think about cake
and how we think about baking.
- [Narrator] General Mills sells more than 50 million boxes
within the first year.
- It put baking, this incredibly difficult,
incredibly time- intensive science
in the hands of everybody,
because everybody can just add water to a cake mix.
- Betty Crocker is the undisputed queen of the kitchen.
- [Narrator] But she might not be for long,
when another trusted name in food enters the game.
- Directly across the Mississippi from General Mills
sits their Gold Medal flour brand's largest rival.
- Pillsbury was the other big flour company in Minneapolis.
They always kind of went head to head with General Mills.
- Pillsbury comes along and says,
"Oh, we've got a cake for you."
- [Narrator] In 1948, Pillsbury introduces
the first chocolate- flavored boxed cake mix.
- And now home cooks have this choice.
Should we go ginger, a classic,
or should we make a chocolate cake?
- And no matter how much you love Betty Crocker,
let's be real.
It's chocolate cake versus ginger cake.
[dramatic music]
- [Narrator] Pillsbury's chocolate cake mix
is an instant hit.
- Chocolate still has this air of luxury and decadence.
It's something for special occasions, to be savored.
- [Narrator] Not to be outdone,
Betty Crocker follows with their own chocolate cake mix,
as well as vanilla.
[dramatic music]
While consumers loved the convenience
of Betty Crocker and Pillsbury's mixes,
there are complaints about texture and moisture.
- Your cake might wind up very dry.
It might be cracked on top.
It might be a little bit more like sawdust.
- [Narrator] Leaving space in the market
for someone else to do it better.
In 1949, Roy Park pays a surprise visit to Duncan Hines.
- After the farmers decided to abandon his project,
Roy Park said, "Gosh, I can still raise the standards
of quality food in homes all over America
by putting Duncan Hines' name on different products."
- [Narrator] But this time Park has a new proposal.
- It's not the same bill of goods I sold you on.
And my client's out, but we can do the same thing together.
Just gimme a moment to explain.
- [Narrator] Park hones in on the boxed cake mix market.
- With respect,
we talked about quality foods.
You're talking about boxed cake mix.
You can forget it.
- We can make a better one.
[suspenseful music]
Look, what if I said you could have final approval
over any product that bears your name?
Just gimme six months. That's all I need.
If we don't have a product you approve of within six months,
the deal's over, then you can walk away.
- [Narrator] Hines agrees.
But now Park needs to deliver an impressive boxed cake
recipe in six months,
when Betty Crocker's took years to perfect.
It's now 1950,
and Roy Park has recruited highly-renowned food technician,
Arlee Andre to come up with a boxed cake recipe
that Duncan Hines will approve.
- Park pretty much has all of his eggs
in one basket at this point.
Everything has to work with Duncan Hines
or he's left with nothing.
[suspenseful music]
- Duncan Hines is gonna be looking at the rise of the cake,
the presentation, the taste, and the moisture.
And he's not settling for anything less
than culinary excellence.
- [Narrator] Hines doesn't find any of the cakes
to be good enough for him to put his name on.
- Andre is feeling he's in a no-win situation.
Nothing he comes up with is good enough,
- [Narrator] But Park's not ready to give up.
- 16 different recipes. I am out of ideas.
It's powdered cake mix.
It's not like you can just put the eggs in a box.
- Why can't women add the eggs themselves at home?
- Doesn't that sort of defeat the purpose?
Don't women buy this stuff because of the convenience?
- Women will buy this stuff because Duncan Hines
says it's the best cake mix there is.
- Roy Park is literally freaking out,
because until Duncan Hines approves something,
they don't have a deal.
- Just try the real eggs.
- [Narrator] For Arlee Andre, the pressure is mounting
to create a cake mix that Duncan Hines will approve,
so he and Roy Park decide to go against
the current convenience trend.
- And whereas Betty Crocker's mix was just add water,
Duncan Hines alters his recipe such
that the home baker would have to crack in two fresh eggs.
- The truth of the matter is
that fresh eggs taste better than dried eggs,
and the idea is your cake is higher
and lighter and tastier.
- [Narrator] After nearly a full six months
of trial and error, Duncan Hines
finally approves a boxed cake recipe.
It's a devil's food cake.
- Straight down the barrel.
Three, two, one.
- [Narrator] In 1952, Duncan Hines' first cake in a box
hits store shelves.
Each box is stamped with his signature,
one that becomes an American icon.
- If Duncan Hines said this was good,
that's all they needed to know.
They had a hard time keeping the shelves filled
in grocery stores all over the country.
- The plot twist here is that women
actually preferred cracking and mixing in the eggs.
It makes them feel like they're making a cake from scratch
and less like they're cheating or taking a shortcut.
- It makes someone who isn't a baker,
who is afraid of cooking,
feel like they have a bit of culinary skin in the game.
- Because of his name,
and because there was a quality difference,
Duncan Hines made his way into the top tier of sales.
- Their cakes have a lot more flavor
and they taste less like a cake mix
and more like a nice buttery homemade cake.
- [Narrator] Within three weeks, Duncan Hines captures 48%
of the cake mix market,
previously dominated by Betty Crocker.
[dramatic music]
Determined to keep their cake brand on top,
the Betty Crocker team studies Hines' cake,
hoping to come up with something that can beat it.
- It's good.
It's really good.
- Duncan Hines just jumped into the game
and left the industry reeling.
[suspenseful music]
- But honestly, it's mainly the frosting
that makes it taste so good.
- Sam, that's it.
[suspenseful music]
- What?
- [Narrator] Marjorie Hustead just figured out
what the boxed cake market is missing.
- Frosting. [dramatic music]
- [Narrator] In 1954, the team at Betty Crocker fights back
with a groundbreaking product.
[dramatic music]
The very first cake in a box to include ready-made frosting.
They call it the answer cake.
- You might wonder what the question was,
but it was really an answer to a complete cake.
- It was literally the full package.
It came with the cake mix,
it came with the cake pan that you bake it in,
and it came with some just-add-water frosting.
- [Narrator] Betty Crocker will also release
a whipped version of the frosting,
another innovation that galvanizes sales
to the tune of $80 million a year.
[dramatic music]
- And frosting, by the way, is not easy to make.
You have to perfectly incorporate the sugar
into some kind of shortening or butter.
Then you have to add flavor.
It has to be able to be whipped.
You don't want it to just sort of be ambiguous blobs of fat.
It has to have balance, and it's not really easy.
- [Narrator] Betty Crocker frosting
turned an instant cake into a showstopper.
One affordable enough to make for any occasion.
[gentle music]
- This really opened the floodgates
to the next level of home baking
- Cake mixes had become kind of run of the mill.
They were not personal, they were not sentimental.
But once you added decorating, once you added frosting,
once you set the whole cake up to look like a football field
and put little peppermint sticks to be the goal post,
you could do all these things.
Then it was yours, then it was the real cake.
- Suddenly, you could make a birthday cake.
You can make a wedding cake.
You know you can make any kinda cake you want.
- The round frosted layer cake became the icon
of a cake in the Betty Crocker era.
That became the American cake.
- [Narrator] Today, Betty Crocker is still
the leading name in cake mix
with annual revenues of $337 million.
And Duncan Hines is a close second with annual revenues
around 260 million.
- The joy of baking, the joy of baking with family
is now something that every family can share.
- To bake a cake from scratch no longer means
that you take out the flour, you take out the sugar,
and you measure the baking powder.
It means you open a box.
So cake mix crossed over and became the real thing.
It's a remarkable victory on the part of the food industry.