Our new Bob’s Signature Blends Baking Mixes are hitting store shelves, and we couldn’t be more excited! Made with signature blends of our premium flours, these easy-to-use baking mixes are your key to homemade perfection: delicious baked goods that taste like they were made from scratch. As a longtime scratch baker myself, I was blown away by the incredible flavor and texture of our Fudgy Brownie Mix, Classic Yellow Cake Mix, Decadent Chocolate Cake Mix and Golden Cornbread Mix when I was given the opportunity to play with them—they really are that good, both the basic preps and our many recipe variations.
When I heard that our Research and Development Team spent years—and countless taste tests, including 20 iterations of the cake mixes—fine-tuning these mixes, I was curious to learn more. Fortunately, I was able to chat with them and got some behind-the-scenes details for you!
Why Did We (and You) Need New Baking Mixes?
Why new baking mixes? As Blake Isaac, Director of Innovation, explained, "During Covid, everyone was baking from scratch and trying new things. And then time sped back up and everyone realized, 'I don’t have time to bake like I used to,' but they still wanted to use that skillset. So it was connecting the dots with, how can we free them up? They’re preparing these beautiful meals, and the last thing they have time to do is bake a cake from scratch. So how can we provide them with that experience and give them a delicious foundation that they can then zhuzh up themselves?"
The baking mixes were already in development when Porter Long, Research and Development Manager, joined the company in early 2023, but the details hadn't quite come together: "At the time, I believe we were already using a blend of flours—I don’t remember if it was two flours, or three. Our goal at the time was already to make the product as good as possible, as moist as possible, the right texture, and we said, 'What tools are in our toolbox, and how can we use them effectively to make delicious baked goods?' That’s where the idea of signature blends started."
Research and Development Chef Sarah House concurred: "We thought, we already have so many fantastic ingredients, and we are the experts on those. We’re going to take them, find the best uses for them, the best ways to combine them, to give our consumers amazing products."
How Did We Create Baking Mixes with Real From-Scratch Flavor?
The next step was finding out what people really wanted from their baking mixes! That meant bringing our mixes—and other popular brands—to focus groups. Here, Isaac discovered an interesting Catch-22: "It was really funny. Every time [participants] got to a natural brand, they’d say, 'Oh, it tastes gross, it’s going to be horrible, no one wants that!' And then we’d put up [some of our competitors] and they’d say, 'This. Is. Delicious.' And then they’d flip it over and read the back and say, 'I know I shouldn’t eat these things, but it tastes so good, and these other options just can’t take it there.' We found that people want fewer ingredients and that homemade, scratch quality, but they don’t want to sacrifice the taste or the flavor. That’s when the team really began fine-tuning the recipes and diving in deeper."
Added Porter, "We were really looking to compete with the best-selling products on the market right now, and those products contain a lot of fillers and artificial preservatives and emulsifiers. Our question to ourselves was, how can we utilize the raw materials we have at Bob’s Red Mill to create that delicious flavor, to create that nice browning, that moist texture, and the right amount of air bubbles?"
As a company that's long been a trusted source of quality flours and other baking essentials, Bob's Red Mill had a unique edge on the competition. After many rounds of trial and error, the team developed a signature blend of four premium flours to create light, moist, tender baked goods—without the fillers. As House put it, "We’re doing what other baking mix companies do, but using far higher quality products."
Thanks to the superior ingredients and thoughtful recipes used to create Bob's Signature Blends Baking Mixes, they're not just delicious, but also endlessly versatile, empowering bakers to add their own special twists to make them their own. Laurel Pinnick, Bob's Red Mill Research and Development Scientist, enthused: "There are so many different things you can do with all of those baking mixes. You can use the cornbread in a sweet or savory way, and with the vanilla cake, you can turn that into pretty much anything you want. Or if you want to eat it as-is, it’s awesome then, too."
Which Signature Blends Baking Mix Will Be Your Favorite?
When asked which mix is their favorite, the R&D team had strong opinions. Said House, "I am the most happy with the brownie mix, because it took a lot of practice and a lot of different variations—I remember having to work in 5 gram increments to find the perfect mix of powdered sugar and granulated sugar, to get that crispy, flaky top. And it’s really good!"
Pinnick agrees: "Brownie’s my favorite, because I will never have to bake another scratch brownie in my life. I’ll just buy that."
Porter is a big fan of the cornbread mix, saying, "It’s a tossup between the cornbread and the yellow cake. I’ll give the lead to the cornbread, because I love savory stuff, and I made some really good jalapeno cheese cornbread with that cornbread mix, and it is delicious—very versatile, and just good."
Isaac added, "I am very thankful for the cake mixes, because I am a hacker when it comes to cake mixes—I usually start with a box and then do my stuff to it. So I’m really excited about that, and I’ve been playing around with those recipes."
What Will You Bake?
Just like proud parents, our Research and Development Team has high hopes for their new "babies." As House put it, "These need to be [customers'] go-tos! Any time they’ve got a birthday party, or friends coming over for dinner, this is what they’ll reach for. And then put their own personal spin on it."
Pinnick added, "I want people to use these mixes to make other things. I want to see what they come up with!" Fortunately, we at the Mill have been so excited about our Signature Blends Baking Mixes, we've already created nearly two dozen recipes. Some of our favorites include the Peanut Butter Brownies, Corn Dogs and Fruit Trifle.
Are you ready for some homemade perfection? Which Signature Blends Baking Mix is catching your eye? Post below!
Thanks, Neva
Are any gluten free?