I love to bake so when I find a ready made cake mix I like to see if they can come close to homemade. When I was in Michael’s recently, I saw that the beloved Buddy from Cake Boss had a line of mixes and icing. I bought the yellow cake mix and the chocolate frosting.
The cake mix calls for water and eggs and comes with a custard pouch you add in. The mix smelled like vanilla but as I started stirring the ingredients it all started to smell like chemicals. By the time I poured it into the pan I was not hopeful. I just couldn’t get passed the overwhelming smell of what I assume were preservatives to increase the shelf life of the product.
While the cake was baking, I stirred the tub of frosting. Let me first start by saying, I am very picky about the frosting that goes on a cake. I am a purest and 99% of the time I only eat cake with butter cream frosting — as in made with sticks of real butter. The only time I use tub frosting is when I am baking cupcakes with Miss Bee who cares more about the sprinkles than the frosting. Tub frosting has come a long way and isn’t totally awful. That being said…
The Cake Boss frosting was pretty bad. I stirred and stirred it and just couldn’t achieve a level of creaminess that you usually find in tub frosting. It didn’t spread onto the cake with ease and it tasted again like it was full of chemicals.
I cut the cake, took a bite, and I really hate to hurt Buddy’s feelings, but it wasn’t very good. The cake was really spongy, not dry, but very bouncy like. It looked like a prop cake, something not to be eaten but would hold up during a set change. I finished my piece, but I was done with any more sampling. Mr. Bee liked it, but he’s not a cake person. Miss Bee took a bite with a fork and said it smelled funny.
I looked up the information on the cake mixes and they are manufactured by Dawn Food Products, Inc. and are based on Buddy’s recipes. I hate to sting people with a poor review, so I will give positive points for the pretty yellow of the cake. On a scale of 0-5 bees (with five bees being over the moon amazing), I would give this one bee. I’m so sorry, Buddy. It’s not you. You’re great. The cake mix, not so much…
Hospitality is in my DNA. I founded Home with a Twist, a daughter’s twist on her mother’s traditions, in memory of my mother to celebrate her life and the gifts she shared with me. Mother loved to celebrate life’s occasions – big and small.
