I offer the following review so that no others will have to follow me down this dark path.
The cupcake kit was $2.79 - for six cupcakes, so a fair bit higher than a standard box cake mix from which you can get something in the range of 24 cupakes with a bit of stirring and pouring rather than the simple slice 'n bake method shown below. So, if you're going to be paying more, you'd better be getting either a whole lot better results or a whole lot more convenience.
I will absolutely give the cupcakes points for ease. I had no clean-up other than a couple of knives, and if it weren't for the photography (better photos than mine can be found here), I would've had these things in the oven in about three minutes, waited seventeen minutes, then had 'em iced in about two minutes once they were cooled some.
As for the taste, I can only describe the taste as chemical, not something for which most folks strive in making their baked goods. I tried the batter baked and unbaked, and the chemical taste was present in both batches. The sell-by date hadn't yet been reached, so I can only assume that this taste is real and going to be present in any of the cupcake kits that you buy. The chemical taste of the cupcakes, however, was luckily drowned by the even stronger chemical taste of the icing.
I tried a couple of tastes of the icing straight from the tube and ended up throwing most of the unused tube away. As someone who has bought tubs of pre-made icing from the store and eaten them over a few days with a spoon, I can safely say that the icing had to be horrible to convince me to throw away a large portion of it rather than downing it, and the icing certainly was horrible. It wasn't bland, inoffensive, or even a pale imitation of freshly-made icing. It was simply an abomination to the frosting family, which surprises me considering that any number of companies have managed successfully in the frosting market.
The consistency and mouth feel of the cakes and their icing were fine, and the cakes were cooked correctly. They just tasted horrible.
To the numbers...
On a scale of 1 to Marvelous, one being the worst, these rank as a blech.
Steer clear, folks. Nothing to eat here.
Thanks to cyber erik for the nice, clean product photo at the very top of the page.
4 comments:
Cupcake batter shouldn't be solid! Ew.
By the way, hi! I have a blog :)
That is, just wow. I'm glad at least you didn't go for the cheesecake filling in a tub. Now that's a fat kid thing to do.
Actually, the "behind the glass setting" is the one you would have wanted for that. The aquarium setting is totally different bc it can deal with movement behind the glass as well.
And, Katydid - cheesecake filling in a tub with teddy grahams - I'm just sayin'...
PBarker - I had noticed that...found a link somewhere among the blog links. Sorry that you missed Wilco.
Katydid - I didn't go for the cheesecake filling in a tub, but I'm not so sure that having downed a tub of hazelnut cream cheese from Panera is all that different.
Calen - sorry, I apparently don't know your camera's setting all that well.
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