The Human Element

7 Emotion: Why the Best Ideas Produce the Most Anxiety

If you have ever baked a cake, chances are, you used a cake mix. Today, 60 million more Americans use a prepackaged mix to make their cakes than those that bake from scratch. The appeal of cake mix isn't hard to understand. Baking a cake from scratch is a lot more work (i.e., Effort), and it requires absolute precision. If the temperature of the oven or the consistency of the batter isn't just right, the cake won't rise. A cake mix removes the hassle and nearly guarantees a perfect result. Without a doubt, it's a wonderful innovation for bakers everywhere.

You would think these benefits would make cake mix the go‐to option for all but the most ardent baking purists. Yet when cake mix first hit the market in 1929, it was far from an overnight success. Despite all the clear benefits, it would take 25 years before cake mix would finally catch on.

The problem wasn't the taste. In taste tests, people loved the cakes from a mix every bit as much as they do today. The problem wasn't the price. It's cheaper to use a cake mix than it is to make a cake from scratch. In fact, the problem had nothing to do with cake at all. It had to do with what the cake represents. Think for a moment about why we choose to make a cake. We don't bake a cake just for ourselves. We bake a cake to celebrate someone else. We bake a cake to express love and ...