This Discontinued Betty Crocker Cake Was A Peanut Butter Lover's Dream

No matter the business, staying up-to-date on consumer trends is the key to staying relevant, successful, and trading. So, when a company has been around as long as Betty Crocker, it's safe to assume that many of its products have been discontinued. And that's absolutely the case.

Betty Crocker traces its roots back to 1921, when General Mills, Inc. held a baking contest and realized there was a massive market for selling products — backed up with seriously good advice — to home bakers. (And no, Betty Crocker was not a real person.) As the decades rolled on, Betty Crocker continued handing out advice and updated recipes, which means there are quite a few old-time desserts and flavors that have dropped off the product line. Let's talk about one in particular, and we'll take a walk down memory lane to stop in the 1950s.

Every decade has its trends, and the 1950s gave rise to some pretty weird and disturbing desserts. They weren't all as bad as the questionable gelatin creations that are more stomach-turning than crave-inducing, but it turns out that there's one particular Betty Crocker cake mix that we — and every peanut butter lover in the nation — would probably love to see make a return: its Peanut Delight Cake Mix. (Are you listening, Betty?)

It's unclear when Betty Crocker added to the boxed cake flavors that are probably gone forever by discontinuing the Peanut Delight Cake Mix, but whatever year it was, it was way too soon. Even to 21st century eyes, ears, and tastebuds, it seems amazing: Advertisements for the mix boast that it used real peanut butter, as if we somehow needed more of a reason to pick up a box or 12. That frosting! That peanut butter flavor! If there's anything that we'd like to see make a comeback from the 1950s, it's this. Interestingly, the vintage advertisement for this cake mix contains a statement that helped give rise to a myth we're now going to debunk ... with a little help.

The statement is, "Homemade-fresh because you add fresh eggs," and there's a good chance you've heard the story that the sale of boxed cake mixes skyrocketed after they switched from including dried, powdered eggs to requiring real eggs. The idea was that home bakers felt like they were taking too much of a shortcut. But according to "Something From The Oven: Reinventing Dinner In 1950s America" author Laura Shapiro (via Snopes), the switch and the increased popularity of boxed mixes likely had more to do with the fact that fresh eggs made better cakes and that those cakes were marketed as a convenient step toward a final, glorious masterpiece. And that peanut butter cake surely was precisely that.

Peanut butter cake seems to have been a pretty popular option back in the 1950s: Even Mickey Rooney had a banana-based Caribbean cake with a peanut butter frosting recipe that's attributed to him ... or at least, to being one of his favorite desserts. And that honestly sounds pretty amazing too, doesn't it?

The good news is that his recipe comes with a super easy way to whip up a peanut butter frosting that might just be the perfect way to top a vanilla cake for a peanut butter flavor that's not too over-the-top. (Alternatively, you could definitely reach for a chocolate or devil's food cake and decorate with halved or quartered Reese's peanut butter cups on top. Go ahead and take credit for that — we'll share!)

Rooney's peanut butter frosting calls for a little vanilla, orange juice, peanut butter, regular butter, and lemon juice. Cream together with icing sugar, and there's your peanut butter frosting. It might not be Betty Crocker's Peanut Delight, but there's no reason this truly inspired cake mix flavor has to be left behind in the 1950s.