Announcing winners from this past weekend's Chococake-o-rama Taste Test

Okay, here's the QUICK scoop (for details & historical data, scroll down to Jawper's post directly below):

Cake X = Duncan Hines Devil's Food Cake Mix
Cake Y = Pillsbury Devil's Food Cake Mix
Cake Z = Homemade Devil's Food Cake, compliments of Cooks Illustrated

Tasters preferred the cake mixes to the homemade by an obvious margin. Duncan Hines and Pillsbury basically tied for the winning spot.

In total, there were 25 testers, including 2 kids under the age of 10. Despite this small sample size, we observed two trends:

1. men overwhelmingly preferred the box cake mixes to the homemade version
   
2. the older the respondent, the more likely you were to enjoy the homemade version
   

An interesting note: a preliminary test of Betty Crocker’s Devil’s Food Cake Mix eliminated it from the main event, as it didn’t seem rich and chocolate-y enough.

For the Sake of Science: Chococake-o-rama results

Significant contention exists as to the relative quality of store-bought-mix cakes vice home-made-from-scratch cakes. As a long-time practitioner of the “scratch is better” school, Pleen recently began to wonder about the real preferences of cake eaters. Thus we embarked upon a scientific battery of testing to establish once and for all if cake eaters can tell the difference between mix and scratch.

In the first event, the July 2007 Yellow Cake Survey Spectacular and Extravaganza, the superiority of modern yellow cake mix to home-made-from-scratch yellow cake was indisputably demonstrated. Since that heady day, Pleen has saved dozens of hours of labor by using only mix in applications calling for yellow cake.

Some of the top sheet results for historical comparison:

General Findings

Gender Breakdown

Age Group Breakdown

However, important answers only lead to more important questions. The continued evolution of knowledge demands much of us all. We cannot turn our backs on the enduring question: what about CHOCOLATE!?

Thus we and our volunteer testers once again sacrificed for the sake of science. On Saturday 4 October, we hosted the Chococake-o-rama Taste Test. We encouraged testers to drop by the testing site, taste the cakes on offer, fill in a ballot designed by highly trained researchers, and witness the release of the top sheet survey results.

Tasters!

The Hypothesis:

• Given advances in food science, there is now little difference between cakes made from box cake mix and cakes made from scratch


• For a devil’s food cake, most people will be indifferent to the difference in flavor between box cake mix and scratch
  

The Methodology:

• 3 different devil’s food cakes were baked today(2 different box mixes & 1 from-scratch)
• Same oven & pans
• Same batch of butter & eggs
• Same batch of frosting
• Recipes baked exactly as directed
  

Evolution of our test methodology has continued. We have high statistical confidence in the validity of our results. The process at both events has been overseen by Ms. JB, Vice President, Business and Consumer Insights at a major market research company. Dr. AS, retired Professor of Marketing at The George Washington University’s School of Business & Public Management acts as senior mentor.

The Ballot

The Results!

General Findings

Gender Breakdown

Age Group Breakdown

We can only conclude that mix cakes offer a real advantage over from-scratch approach - at least in the two genres tested so far. The preferences of our tasters have been authoritative in each test.

Stay tuned for more events from the Squeek's Tasting Center!