So how did we get to a place where Betty Crocker is a popular Halloween costume, casually mentioned in the media and a single red spoon can telegraph an icon? Well, grab some popcorn, and before you even ask, yes, we, of course, have recipes for that, and let’s dive into just who was Betty Crocker and who are we today at age of (if you can even believe it) 100!

Bake Way! Betty Crocker History

We got our start in 1921 — and thank you, we do look good for our age. Who could have guessed that a simple contest by The Washburn-Crosby Company would give birth to an icon? The contest called on home cooks to solve a jigsaw puzzle for the chance to win a pincushion in the shape of a bag of Gold Medal Flour (cute). Washburn, a flour-milling company and predecessor of General Mills, Inc., was surprised to find themselves suddenly inundated with questions from home cooks who used the competition as an opportunity to ask for expert baking advice.

But who could offer the public the spoonfuls of wisdom American cooks were so hungry for? Enter, Betty Crocker. Now, Betty was not a single person. The name was created as a way to personalize responses to questions, and if you guessed that the name has meaning behind it, you’re right. “Crocker” was chosen in honor of a popular company director, and "Betty" was selected because... well, she sounded friendly. We love a little history moment.

But there was one final element needed to bring Betty to life. The Washburn-Crosby Company invited their female employees to try their hand at a Betty Crocker signature. A distinctive winner was chosen and is still used today. Talk about an icon in iconography!

Stir in Education

Along with kitchen-test goodness, educating makers, bakers and whisk takers has been at the core of Betty Crocker since 1924, when daytime radio’s first cooking show took off. That show? “Betty Crocker Cooking School of the Air.” It would later expand to 13 regional stations and “Graduates” of the program, who completed reports and submitted them to "Betty" for grading, numbered 238 the first year and ranged in age from 16 to 82. Due to its immense popularity, the cooking school became a program on the fledgling NBC network and would bake the world a better place for 24 years.

We may not tune into the radio for cooking shows anymore but the spirit of Betty Crocker as our kind and worldly expert in the kitchen continues to this day; from classes to cookbooks to kid-friendly experiments in the BettyLab. If you're not familiar with BettyLab, it's a place where we inspire young makers to create, learn and innovate through STEM-based kitchen experiments. Science you can eat? What will Betty think of next!