Dr Oetker’s Bake in the Box sounds like a cautionary tale adapted for Netflix, but is actually a cake. If you’re looking for nuance in the kitchen, this is not for you. But if you are time-poor, appliance-shy or incompetent, then it is. It is so straightforward to make, so utterly bake-by-numbers, I half-expected to find it came with a sachet of enzymes to help you digest the thing. Alas not.
Dr Oetker launched its baking kits late last year with little fanfare. The German-owned food company’s UK branch is based on an industrial estate in Lancashire opposite Crossleys, a company that repairs caravans – another sort of box. Yet Dr Oetker has become one of the leading manufacturers of frozen foods and baking equipment. It dominates the market. Put simply, the bake in the box cake is evolution.
I get my hands on the lemon and poppy seed loaf (other varieties include banana and choc chip, and double chocolate). To make it, you remove the lid and empty the mix into the box. Whisk seven tablespoons of milk in using a fork (since we’re on a convenience tip, I use the same tablespoon) and pop into an oven, preheated to 190C/gas mark 5. Remove after 10 minutes, score a 1cm-deep groove down the middle of the cake and return to the oven for a further 20 minutes.
This is convenience food from the same school as boil in the bag and microwave meals: all designed to help “overcome the barriers consumers face when it comes to home baking”, says the company. It’s a valid argument, although there’s something conflicting about the almost tyrannical convenience and the fact that it still takes 30 minutes to bake. But it works, and the cake is fine: lemony, dense, too sweet but adequate.
The good news is that Dr Oetker didn’t try to gender it with a pink box, or deploy a fun font to make it look hip. The bad news – and I discovered this after eating the cake – is that Dr Oetker has a Nazi past. Richard Kaselowsky, a past owner of the firm, was a “leading supporter” of Hitler. The company’s president at that time – and son of the original doctor – Rudolf-August Oetker joined the Nazi party in the 1930s, news that was later exposed by his son, August Oetker – to his credit – because, according to a spokesman: “The business felt it important to be transparent about any mistakes that were made in the past, set the facts straight once and for all and do everything to prevent anything like the Third Reich happening again.” So there you go.
But back to the cake. Dr Oetker’s Bake in the Box is ridiculously simple to make – it would take a colossal muppet to mess it up and yet, I did. Halfway through, I decided to add lemon juice to zhoosh it up – but in my attempt to rip up the rulebook, as it were, I ended up ripping the box. Simple for some, then.
