Serves: 5

San Diego, California
For me "Spirit of Betty Crocker" conjures images of the heavenly aroma of devil's food cake baking in my grandmother's kitchen-my traditional choice for birthday cake-and me sticky-faced with whatever batter is left on the beaters while my two younger brothers clean the mixing bowl and spatula with grubby little hands. It's me busily chopping pecans in an old wooden bowl and learning how to crack eggs into a cup so as not to get shell bits in the batter and dropping them one at a time into the dry mix, breathing in the chocolate dust, then helping my great grandmother count three hundred strokes by hand while she mixes the brownie batter in her favorite blue stoneware bowl.
It's me thumbing through the yellowed pages of my mother's familiar, worn cookbook as a teenager preparing my first family meal and finding that favorite fried chicken recipe-comfort food if ever there was such a thing.
It's me and my college girlfriends at a sorority sleepover, after hearing that Betty Crocker had been a member of our beloved Delta Zeta, pinky-swearing over chocolate cake (devil's food again, no doubt, with sour cream frosting) never to buy a cake mix from anyone else, like there would be another choice, and it's the tub of frosting that we always seemed to have left over and would eat by the spoonful, or the fingerful if no one was looking.
It's Impossible Broccoli Pie baked in two pie plates so I can share one with my mother-in-law, and happily so since the tomato wedges arranged carefully on top originated in her backyard garden. It's my aunt, showing me how substituting applesauce for oil cuts the fat in cake and that baking it in a scalloped-edge tiara cake pan allows you to pour cherry pie filling in the top so you don't need frosting, and it's me laughing and saying, "But that's half the fun of cake," so we spread fat-free chocolate pudding on top instead.
It's the smell of made-from-scratch sourdough bread and cinnamon rolls baking in my oven every Thursday morning whose recipes call specifically for Betty Crocker Potato Buds® because, according to
my grandmother who gave me the liquid dough starter, no other flake does the trick, and it's that same dough that, with sauce that's been simmering all afternoon and whatever toppings are at hand, becomes Pizza Art on Friday nights when my husband and I steal some quality time away from busy work schedules to cook dinner together and then snuggle in front of the television.
Even though it's not spelled out on the box, I think that's the best part of the recipe, the reminiscing about dear friends and family, I mean, because that's the Spirit of Betty Crocker. It's not about cake mixes, fried chicken, pecan brownies, or dried potatoes. It's about long-standing family traditions, lifelong friendships, passing down things like recipes and blue stoneware mixing bowls from one generation to another, laughing together over memories like birthday candles that won't blow out and finding more uses for wooden spoons than mixing cake batter.

More Recipes from the Betty Crocker's Best-Loved Recipes Cookbook:
BISQUICK BAKING MIX
Bean and Cheese Pie
Black Bean Chili
CAMILLE KETTEL
Cheesy Lasagna
Chicago Deep-Dish Pizza
Classic Cheese Souffle
Creamy Fettuccine Alfredo
ELECTRIC APPLIANCES
Impossible Broccoli 'n Cheddar Pie
MARGOT M. SEGURA
MEAT TOPPINGS
Macaroni and Cheese
Manicotti
Pasta with Lemon and Basil
Penne with Roasted Tomatoes and Garlic
ROSE MCBRIEN
ROXYANNE YOUNG
Spinach Phyllo Pie
THE RED SPOON
Thin-Crust Pizza
VEGETABLE TOPPINGS
Vegetable Lasagna
WITH A SIFT, SIFT HERE...
Whole Wheat Vegetable Calzone