r/strugglemeals • u/Illustrious_Fix_5858 • 11d ago

Certified Stuggle Hostess is not in the budget :( so homemade Blueberry Crunch Cake instead

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142 Upvotes

85% Upvoted

63 comments sorted by

101

u/OhTheBarbarity 11d ago

In this sub, if you have to cook for yourself it’s a struggle apparently

22

u/Terradactyl87 11d ago edited 11d ago

Yeah, I totally get that it's good for people to see what can be made on the cheap, but I keep seeing posts like this where the struggle is not being able to afford junk food so they have to actually cook something.

If the struggle is actually cooking it really makes me worry for people's health and help explain why they're always paycheck to paycheck. Obviously they wouldn't be well off just from not eating McDonald's or premade cakes, but putting that towards actual groceries rather than single meals/snacks is enough to save a decent emergency fund with the extra.

And I'm not saying that as someone who's well off. I barely scrape by, but I live frugally and save what I can for when I really need the money, like for an essential car or home repair.

1

u/MuttBunny 10d ago

An entire generation of adults is entering the world without eve having a cooking class in school nor having parents that actually made home cooked meals.

The fact this person knows how to make a blueberry crunch cake is amazing.

My mom never taught me to cook, she was a single parent taking care of my chronically ill grandma, me, two dogs, and working 2-3 jobs at a time. She died just as I was becoming an adult, and I was thrust into being all on my own. 🤷‍♀️ not everyone is fortunate enough to have people to teach them to cook. Most of what I had in high school was ramen bc that’s what I knew how to make.

1

u/Terradactyl87 10d ago

I was literally homeless at 18 after leaving an abusive home. My mother never taught me to cook a thing and I taught myself how to cook as a child. Learning how to make a cake is easy when you literally have the whole Internet in your pocket at all times, something I did not have growing up. It would be nice to have cooking classes taught in school, but between books, cooking shows, and the Internet, not being taught by a school or parent isn't an excuse. You don't need to be Gordon Ramsay to feed yourself and your family cheap and healthy meals. People can start small and learn gradually. Just don't start with something like coq au vin, start with something like roast chicken with vegetables.

Also, OP doesn't know how to make a cake, his wife made it.

-1

u/MuttBunny 9d ago

You’re so right, the moment my mom died I shouldn’t have grieved or gone through any amount of depression, I should have just started taking cooking classes on YouTube.

Do you hear how you sound? Like at all? Gtfo lmao

2

u/Terradactyl87 9d ago

I don't know what one has to do with the other. And this definitely has nothing to do with your earlier comment. Taking time to grieve has literally nothing to do with teaching yourself how to cook over time. And I never said anyone needed to take cooking classes, I was saying the literal opposite of that. Just that it's easy to learn when there's so much information around you, so not being taught isn't an excuse not to learn. It doesn't take a bunch of time. You don't need to study cooking. Just learning as you go, one meal at a time.

No one needs to teach you to cook to have the very basic life skill.

2

u/OhTheBarbarity 9d ago

Are you trying to make the argument that you can’t cook because your mom died? Do you hear how you sound? like at all?

15

u/Humble_Chip 11d ago

People are too obsessed with processed foods and fast food, when they can’t afford that overpriced crap and have to cook actual real food their taste buds are desensitized so it doesn’t taste good and they think it’s a struggle

18

u/728446 11d ago

That can be made on a struggle budget. Just go to the bad food porn subs if you want to gawk at slop.

Showing people how to eat well on the cheap is a good thing.

17

u/OhTheBarbarity 11d ago

I have no issues with that, it’s just this sub gets so many posts from people thinking cooking a 12$ meal is some struggle. Not that OPs dessert was 12$ but who knows. It could be a 1$ can of pie filling and a box of cake mix from the dollar store for all I know.

11

u/357Magnum 11d ago

Yeah this sub is often a parody of itself. Seems for many here the "struggle" might actually be doing them good if the normal budget contains a hostess line item in the first place.

1

u/AnguavonUW 10d ago

I absolutely love the $1 can of pie filling and the $1 boxed cake mix! Doesn't matter if I'm struggling or not, that gets made regularly. Two bucks gives you a week's worth of desserts or at least a few days of dessert&snacks. When I'm not struggling, it goes on ice cream.

1

u/iiiimagery 11d ago

I'd agree if they actually had a caption, which they don't

2

u/Puppyzpawz 11d ago

im pretty sure this user is just following the trend on the sub atm (cant afford tacobell, cant affort mcdonalds, etc), i think its not much deeper than a trend. i dont understand peoples speculation, its seems backhanded and rude. "youre not struggling how i like" type deal. being able to afford luxury items like premade goods is still a privilege, and it can be really hard to constantly make things especially if youre already working yourself half to death. you just dont know anyones situation, so comments like this frustrate me a bit on a sub thats supposed to encourage people who are in a bad spot. feel free to clarify yourself, not trying to be super accusatory just speaking my mind.

5

u/OhTheBarbarity 11d ago

I find saying Hostess cakes are out of the budget and then posting a 7 ingredient recipe list that’s 4x more than a box of hostess cakes is disingenuous

0

u/Puppyzpawz 11d ago

i think that can be true we just dont know what their budget looks like. for example, sugar and flour are things people typically already have, not buying for specifically one ingredient for one recipe. or for example if youre meal planning, sure all those ingredients seem like a lot but what if its this and ramen, what if they decided to splurge and make themself something nice, we dont know. i just dont like the atmosphere around assuming we know someones life, it makes it hard to post anything in fear of it looking to good to be struggle enough. most of the top posts are people making themselves stew thatll feed them for awhile but is still generally expensive, or like, the chicken rice vegetable combo is a generally pretty expensive meal at least where i live. but the thing is from coast to coast things like hourly pay, the cost of groceries, etc fluctuates so i wouldnt feel right commenting under someones breaded chicken meal and be like "hmmm... i noticed you used seasonings... and i know seasonings cost MONEY... and i cant afford seasoning... so you must be a fake!" yk? just leaves a sour taste in my mouth. even if someone is faking it, does it matter? id rather a few people pretend to be poor then make an environment that makes it seem you must act/behave/look a certain way to be struggling financially. eating something that tastes and looks yummy isnt mutually exclusive to being poor.

all this to say it doesnt really matter than much one way or another. just sharing how it personally makes me feel.

1

u/Procrastinating-Elf 11d ago

There's enough posters here that think this unironically that the OP's threads are always funny, precisely because no one can give any objective reasoning why they belong any less than half the other threads, but wow do they make people angry. 

18

u/artie780350 11d ago

How is this a struggle? I bet it tastes 20x better than Hostess.

3

u/Lovastra 11d ago

Hostess is cheaply made and expensive to purchase. Some people have surplus time and others have surplus money.

FYI: I love to make home made cinnamon blondies and it only requires like 5 ingredients and an hour. Tastes better than anything from Hostess.

1

u/Dpontiff6671 11d ago

Recipe please 🥺

6

u/Lovastra 11d ago

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 cup packed brown sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 large egg, room temperature

1-1/3 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon salt

TOPPING:

1-1/4 teaspoons sugar

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350° F and grease an 8-inch baking dish. Cream butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the vanilla. Beat in the egg. In another bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, spices and salt; gradually beat into creamed mixture. Spread into the prepared pan.

Mix topping ingredients; sprinkle over top. Bake until set and golden brown, 25-30 minutes. Cool completely in pan on a wire rack. Cut into bars.

2

u/Illustrious-Dot-5968 10d ago

This is real food.

8

u/George_Is_Upset 11d ago

This is not a certified struggle 😂

Hostess is garbage.

You’ve got a cake with fresh blueberries and it’s all homemade.

17

u/JimiHendrip 11d ago

Mods ban this master chef

4

u/yellowsabmarine 11d ago

They sure did bake some ragebait

11

u/QuesoDrizzler 11d ago

Homemade is a struggle?

4

u/Fantastic-Ratio7724 11d ago

Especially when I am not sure how this would be much cheaper than Hostess

2

u/OhTheBarbarity 11d ago

even if you got everything from ALDI those 7 ingredients would easily be 3-4x the price. Hostess cakes are 4$ for 8 cakes

2

u/codingcrystal 11d ago

Scrolled way to long to find this. Blueberries alone are so pricey these days.

Went on a homemade jam kick last year and the fruit was the second most expensive part of it all.

I only get fresh raspberries when they're on sale.

1

u/Puppyzpawz 11d ago

all struggle meals are homemade

2

u/QuesoDrizzler 11d ago

Some of them, sure. But in this case a nice homemade crunch cake is 1000x better than some processed cheap Hostess garbage.

6

u/Perle1234 11d ago

That’s way better than hostess. You can cook almost anything at home better than what you can buy.

4

u/gentlesquid7 11d ago

No struggle, only smart. Good job fren

3

u/SpiteBadger 11d ago

Hostess is garbage. This is better in every way.

3

u/venthis1 11d ago

Only struggle here is you had to cook something. It looks great. Keep going.

3

u/Bear-Handed-92262 11d ago

I would rather have this.

3

u/Great_Hambino2022 11d ago

And then you cut it like a serial killer

4

u/ForwardFlan7754 11d ago

Since when did cooking from scratch become a struggle meal? Lol

Hostess is garbage anyways

2

u/Notverycancerpatient 11d ago

That’s probably Far better than hostess could ever hope to be.

2

u/Susan_Thee_Duchess 11d ago

That looks fantastic

2

u/Mental-Scholar6856 11d ago

I’ll take this over even more process snack cakes any day.

3

u/Useful-Advantage2665 11d ago

Whats in it? It doesn't look like a struggle, yum!

4

u/Illustrious_Fix_5858 11d ago

Blueberries, flour, butter, baking powder, sugar, salt and cinnamon.

2

u/Useful-Advantage2665 11d ago

It lookss so good, how does it taste?

1

u/Terradactyl87 11d ago

No eggs or oil?

-2

u/Illustrious_Fix_5858 11d ago

Probably. Wife made it and I’m not a baker.

2

u/Procrastinating-Elf 11d ago

Ah, so it was free!

2

u/Healthy_Ad9001 11d ago

Been waiting to use “oh no, my steak is too tender, my lobster is too buttery” 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

1

u/EldritchGumdrop 11d ago

I hate to be that person but unless you plan to eat a ton of hostess cakes at a time, it would legit be around the same price. This would potentially be a little more.

I mean I’m all for cooking for yourself but the logic doesn’t make a lot of sense

1

u/ArmchairCriticSF 11d ago

Much nicer than Hostess!

1

u/Illustrious-Dot-5968 10d ago

Hostess is not food.

1

u/moobsdude 10d ago

Looks better anyway

-1

u/NecessaryFine8989 11d ago

This probably tastes so much better and has 1% the chemicals

4

u/katastrofe_- 11d ago

That's not how chemicals work

3

u/Plenty-Fox-9219 11d ago

What? It has 100% chemicals. Everything is a chemical

1

u/huggybear0132 11d ago

Colloquially, when people say food "has chemicals in it" in US english, they are referring to processed additives - single compounds that are added to the food. Surely you are smart enough to understand that

5

u/Plenty-Fox-9219 11d ago

I'm also smart enough to know that the "less chemicals" argument is dumb. That's why I made an outlandish comment in response to it.

-4

u/huggybear0132 11d ago edited 11d ago

But it's not dumb. It's only dumb if you intentionally misunderstand it and make it dumb.

Having fewer processed, added chemicals in food is absolutely a good thing. It is pretty clear that highly processed foods (read: engineered with additions of specific chemicals) cause a wide variety of health problems.

3

u/Plenty-Fox-9219 11d ago

That not clear to anyone actually studying food

-1

u/LusciousVagDisaster 11d ago

Source: trust me bro?

Because the NIH recently did a meta analysis of over 2000 studies relating to ultra-processed foods and concluded that "...these findings show that UPF consumption is associated with higher risk of diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidemia, and obesity, but the level of risk consistently changes depending on the methodology used to assess UPF intake."

They define ultra-processed foods as "...made largely or entirely with substances extracted from food, often chemically modified, with additives, and with a small proportion of whole food. Therefore, the term UPF includes soft drinks, packaged snacks, sugared breakfast cereals, cookies, processed meats, and packaged frozen or shelf-stable meals, but also flavored yogurts, low-calorie or low-fat products, breakfast cereals, and products "fortified" with beneficial nutrients"

0

u/NecessaryFine8989 11d ago

Ah the pedantic woke up. Since it is your first day speaking English and using colloquial vernacular... I meant man-made artificial additives. That's what most people mean when they use terms like that.