Can we talk about whether box mixes count as real baking on this sub or not
Last week at the grocery store in Boise I ran into a woman from my church who bakes for the county fair every August, and she flat out said a blue ribbon won with a box mix is a fake win. But then my neighbor Deb won second place in the quick bread class with a mix plus a mashed banana and nobody at the fair cared. So which is it, does the box cancel out the work you put in or does the end result speak for itself? I want to hear from folks who judge these contests and from folks who admit they use a mix. Where do you draw the line?