This is hidden brain.
I'm Shankar Vedantan.
Honey, when was the last time you baked a cake?
Last week, dear.
When american food companies introduced cake mixes in the 1930s, they figured they had a winner.
All you had to do was add water to the mix and pop it into the oven.
You don't have to be an expert.
When you use my cake mix, the.
Men really go for it.
There was just one problem.
American women were not going for it.
Sales lagged for nearly two decades.
Northwestern University researcher Lauren Nordgren says the lack of interest wasn't because the cakes tasted bad.
The problem was psychological.
What baking a cake represents is care.
And the perception was was that making cake with a pre packaged mix was a violation of that act.
General Mills hired a psychologist named Ernest Dichter, who came up with a clever solution.
Instead of including dried eggs in their mixes, General mills asked bakers to add fresh eggs.
When you make a cake from a mix, which do you want?
A fresh egg cake or a cake made with dried eggs?