Arlee Andre; Cake Mix Creator

Arlee Andre, creator of the original Duncan Hines cake mixes, has died at age 89. Andre, who died Monday, was a cereal chemist testing flour for Nebraska Consolidated Mills in Omaha in 1952 when he decided to develop a cake mix with better flavor and uniformity than the mixes then available.

Andre researched the best ways to make yellow cake, white cake, chocolate cake and angel food cake.

“My sister and I were more or less raised on it. We were the test subjects,” said his son, Alan. “He’d bring home these little cakes, unfrosted, with little numbers on them. He’d say, ‘Taste them and tell me what you think.’ ”

When the mixes were ready to be marketed, Nebraska Consolidated Mills paid food and drink connoisseur Duncan Hines a penny a box to use his name. The mixes quickly became popular and were sold to Procter & Gamble in 1956.