Velveteen Queen

Having become somewhat of a baking snob over the years, I lost faith in the boxed ready to bake cakes and muffins. With the exception of messy kitchen time with my three little cousins, I stopped trying the easy to use mixes, opting for the more 'from scratch' method of baking. Especially as there are so many deliciously inviting cook books and mouth watering baking blogs that lay out the specifics step by step, making the process of creating your favourite treats as easy as can be.


However dear friends, I must admit, after waltzing down the aisles of my local food store a little beauty caught my eye. I am not afraid to say that it was the packaging that did it for me, I most certainly am a book cover judging Judy, give me a sassy looking dessert laid out in kitschy retro fashion and I'm yours! Which is exactly what happened when I found the Betty Crocker Red Velvet cake mix!

I snatched this off the shelf and threw it into my basket, with the Cream Cheese Style Icing like the glorious cherry on top!


This tasty little parcel has almost everything you need to whip up the sexiest dessert in all the land. Your additional ingredients are 3 eggs, 65ml of vegetable oil, 205ml of water and a couple of nicely greased cake tins. Throw everything into a bowl or your mixer and whisk for several minutes (I put the pedal to the metal and let my mixer do its thing for about 5 minutes... Just to be sure!) Divide the cake mix into your two tins and pop them in your preheated oven at 180*/ gas mark 4 for about 24 minutes.

Behold!!! The colour of the mixture got me rather excited. I was tempted to drop in a little red food colouring to amp up the volume but decided against it, I did though, sprinkle in a couple drops of vanilla essence, you know, just because.


After the guided time, once the cakes were baked to optimum loveliness I left them to cool then layered them up with the frosting. I will say one thing, the smell of the frosting as it comes out of the tin was a little plastic-y for my liking, but upon tasting I totally forgot about my sense of smell, and just wanted to shovel it in my mouth.

Needless to say this went down a treat with my friends and family, as there is one measly piece left and I only baked it a couple days ago!

Okay okay, I am converted to at least try more of these handy ready mixed boxes, this one in particular was a real hit, so simple to put together and looked and most importantly tasted very very nice. I think I will hunt down a recipe to make a red velvet cake from scratch, just to compare, but I won't be as quick to discard these packaged ones in the future.

Since my birthday is juuuuust around the corner, cakes are on my mind! What to make myself, what to make? I welcome any ideas of new things to try.