Friday, April 15, 2011

Let the Buyer Beware

Having gotten into my kitchen fairly early I needed to have something to nosh for the week and for Shabbos and until we actually got into yom tov. My sister had raved to me about the non-gebrokts cake mixes that were sold last year so I decided to save some time and effort and get a few of the boxes. Didn't hurt that the market had them on sale either.

I'm naming the brand here because I think it's cogent to what follows. I purchased Liebers mixes. The first mix clearly said coffee cake with crumb topping on the box with a huge picture of a cake clearly covered with a CRUMB topping. The second cake was a chocolate chip cake. The huge picture on the front clearly showed a yellow cake dotted with some chocolate chips. The third box was clearly identified as yellow cake mix with a packet of chocolate frosting. The picture on the box showed a yellow cake frosted in chocolate.

So, what did I get from these cake mixes? Well, the coffee cake with crumb topping mix included did not include any crumb topping but did have a sugar packet to sprinkle on top of the cake before baking--final result looks nothing like the picture on the box. The yellow cake with chocolate chips turned out to be a chocolate cake with chocolate chips--nothing like the picture on the box. The yellow cake with chocolate frosting turned out to be a chocolate cake. Again, not what was advertised on the box.

I understand that manufacturers get kind of busy when they put out their Pesach products, but this is ridiculous. One mistake I could perhaps understand, but three (actually four, since I bought two boxes of the chocolate chip cake mix and they were both chocolate cake instead of yellow cake)? So much for shortcutting the baking--my mixer and I are going to be getting friendly again with a made-from-scratch recipe because when I want yellow cake I want YELLOW cake. If any of you bought those mixes, I hope you have better luck than I did, but don't be surprised if the final results are not quite what you expected.

You bet that Liebers will be hearing from me about this.

8 comments:

Tamar said...

Sure ho9pe I have better luck with the Leibers mixes then you did. I bought 2 that are the same as you talk about. Guess I'll find out tomorrow night.

Miami Al said...

Yeah, we were fed up with cereals that didn't look anything like the picture on the box.

On the plus side for the Liebers Coffee cake, it is delicious, but it's tiny and looks nothing like the picture.

However, if you want to have coffee and cake on a Shabbat afternoon, it hits the spot.

tesyaa said...

Al, the coffee cake mixes are our favorite. They are gebroks so no good for ProfK, though.

As for misrepresentation, is anyone surprised that a heimishe brand misrepresents its products? Not that national brands never do, but much less so. I think national brands are more concerned about reputation than heimishe brands, who after all have a captive audience. Where else can you go for grain-free cake mixes?

Good Shabbos all!

abbas rantings said...

first self-cleaning oven, now cake mixes, what's next?

TESYAA:

"As for misrepresentation, is anyone surprised that a heimishe brand misrepresents its products?"

this is particularly a problem with heimish vitamins/herbal products. in general these products don't have a good track record when it come to contents vs. labeling. i can't imagine that using a heimish brand helps. (not that i think, imho, that people should waste their $ on these products to being with)

mchast said...

Are we even certain that the cakes are kosher for Pesach? If they can't get the right cake in the right box, they might have cakes with flour and chometz in then that got mixed up. This makes me very suspicious about their cakes being kosher l'Pesach.

Helen said...

Read this and figured you just had some rotten luck and it couldn't happen again. Stupid me, I bought the Liebers mixes because our local market was getting rid of them on a really great sale yesterday. You guessed it--every blasted cake was chocolate!!!! And all of them were either labeled as yellow cake or showed a yellow cake. I'll be joining you in yelling at Liebers after Pesach. What a rip off!

G6 said...

I guess I got lucky.
I mostly make my own cakes, but buy one boxed mix "just in case" (you know... those horrible "cake emergencies..." sigh).
My chocolate chip yellow cake was precisely that.

Anonymous said...

Why do you folks imagine they were on sale?