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My beloved Aunt Nettie always baked an angel food cake, buttermilk corn sticks, biscuits, yeast rolls, prepared tea by the gallons and put out her best table linens, finestchina, and silverware, and somehow got up in her high ceiling house attic to bring down six dinner table chairs by herself. She was, as she said, a young 90 ! (Her husband had died a year ago.In addition, she washed and iron her white starched curtains and polished the hardwood floors, Our family gathered with our 'specialties' at her house for a wonderful family reunion and decoration day at the cemetery. Her cake was the lightest, highest and most delicious imaginable. All of us 'girls' requested her recipe and she smiled as she told us she would be glad to share it, but as the afternoon went by so quickly, we forgot about it and all too soon folks began to go home. My husband and I stayed around to help put the extra chairs back in the attic, cleaning the bathrooms, picking up left behind toys, mopping the floors, and so forth. The garbage had been put in big bags outside, past the screen door and I wanted to check to be sure we didn't lose any of her flatware or whatever. Well. Imagine my great surprise when I came upon two Betty Crocker Angel Food Cake Mix boxes! OMG! Our beloved Aunt Nettie was 90 years young, very intelligent, taught children's Sunday school, played piano for church, visited the shut-ins with flowers fron her garden, and still drove wherever she needed to go. She cared for her only child, (Marjorie and her family of five) recovering from breast cancer. Aunt Nettie would not hurt anyone's'feelings for all the money in the world. She even bravely ate a few bites of slaw I had made with too much vinegar! But she knew that some things had to be done were more important and they came first, as you see. None of us came just for the fried chicken,ham, potato salad, turkey and dressing,the jello salads, fresh vegetables, casseroles, but we all enjoyed eating together, missing the family members who we would never see again. Food is always appreciated and sometimes a homemaker might have or take some extra time in her/his day and decide to measure, sift, stir, blend, separate, crush, beat, whip, heat, boil, bake, chill, and clean up the mess. But sometimes, that very same homemaker may have a more immediate need to make something for people she loves but doesn't have quite enough time. If you ever find yourself in that situation, may I suggest you try my Aunt Nettie's Angel Food Cake Recipe. It's a family favorite!
I never let her know that I knew Betty Crocker helped make her famous cakes! I promise your secret recipe will be safe with me, too!

We cook from scratch. My parents owned a restaurant. My dad was also a butter maker and he made thousands of gallons of ice cream at the dairy he managed. (He also mixed flavors he liked and created a following in our town.) My grandparents were dairy farmers. We have always been involved with food. Likewise, my spouse's grandmother owned a bakery and his grandfather was sous chef at the biggest hotel in a major American city. His parents are candy makers and that requires specialty equipment, exact adherence to tested recipes, and attention paid to temperature and humidity (especially with things like peanut brittle, caramels and chocolates); candy making it is a precise science; even more particular than baking.

We have boiled down hogs heads to get the precious jowl meat for tamales and make our own corn and flour tortillas. We make Lefse (a mashed potato based flat bread from Norway) and Armenian flat breads. We cook from French, Chinese, Mexican and Italian cookbooks, and make everything but soy sauce, oyster sauce, fish sauce, by hand. Dressings from scratch, soups from homemade stock. (We never use "canned" broth or stock.) We make our own salsa, mayonnaise, and chutney. All bread is homemade, including hot dog and hamburger buns. All pie crusts are made by hand, with shortening, they are flaky and wonderful. We ENJOY cooking it is our avocation. We had a family reunion with extended family (my BIL's aunt and uncle from Argentina) so we found and prepared a "traditional" recipe of chicken/rice/orange soup and the guests CRIED because during their month long sojourn in the USA this was their FIRST Argentinian dish; they were grateful and I was glad we made the effort; it brought such joy with just a few ingredients (but put together in an unusual way). . We didn't even know if the recipe was "traditional" as promised, but it certainly was in their case. It was a "taste of home" when they had been gone a long time.

IOW, we are NOT "cake mix" people. BUT, here is a truth! You can make your own angel food cake and spend time separating a dozen eggs, weighing, mixing, and baking. OR you can make an easy angel food cake from a good mix and (1) IT TASTES THE SAME, and (2) the "crumb" IS EVEN MORE RELIABLE with the mix. Aunt Nettie was NOT taking a short cut, she was GIVING HER FAMILY THE BEST! (The fact that you think that homemade is ALWAYS better means her effort was lost on you.)

The notion that "angel food boxed cake mixes" are JUST AS GOOD OR BETTER than homemade has been VERIFIED by "Iron Chef" Geoffrey Zakarian, "Barefoot Contessa" Ina Garten, restauranteur Bobby Flay, and too many other great cooks to name. Most box cakes are NOT AS GOOD as the "from scratch" version. There isn't a mix that can come close to my spouses 4 layer toasted coconut cake; or my 3 layer Italian cream cake, or my spouses "best ever" chocolate cake. The quality of these cakes cannot be matched by any boxed mix. However, we keep a supply of BOXED angel food cake mix stacked in the pantry. When raconteur Garrison Keillor moved to Denmark, he famously took a years supply of angel food cake mix with him. The preference of angel food cake mixes are legion.

Please, your aunt was NOT "hiding anything" because she knew that smart people know that NOBODY should be shamed for making angel food cake from a mix. It is the BEST way to spend your time if you want the best. (Angel food cake from scratch CAN be dry if you are not calibrating the humidity in the air and adjusting your liquids, oven temperature, and length of baking time. Way too much work; just use the mix, serve the best, and ignore your "shocked" relatives.) Aunt Nettie was RIGHT!!!