As a rule I don’t like to use box or packet mixes for baking
but every so often I am sent one to try and I’m always intrigued by them
and their results.
A few weeks ago a box landed on my desk at work and I opened
it to find four cardboard tubes of packet mixes from the The Little Sins Cupcakery. The flavours included were vanilla, chocolate, red velvet and
carrot. On first impressions I liked what I saw. It wasn’t a cheap grotty box like
you pick up from the supermarket, in fact it looked quite fancy.
I decided to test out the chocolate ones as let’s be honest, we all love a good chocolate cupcake. The instructions were simple and easy to follow and there was no weighing needed, just a jug for measuring. I didn’t have any buttermilk in which the recipe requested so I added half a tablespoon of lemon juice to some normal milk instead.
Everything mixed easily enough with a balloon whisk so there was no getting out the electric whisk or mixer.
Using an ice-cream scoop I evenly distributed the filling between all the cupcake cases and sprinkled the chocolate chips included on top. Important to note here that the cases are very good quality. I hate making cupcakes with cheap cases only to find out they have peeled once cooled. The cases in this set did not peel at all. I baked them in the oven for 22mins and they came out looking delicious. My only concern was the tops were very rounded like a muffin, I prefer my cupcakes to rise with a level top as this makes icing them a lot easier. I did debate about slicing off the tops but I didn’t want to lose the chocolate chips that miraculously did not sink to the bottom while baking.
I opted to follow the Little Sin's recipe for buttercream instead of my usual one and I’m so glad I did. By using melted chocolate instead of cocoa it wasn’t as rich but silky smooth and fluffy – delicious!
The kit makes 12 cupcakes so I brought 6 over to a friend as I was seeing her that afternoon and the rest into work the following day. Taste wise I wasn’t sold on the flavour of the sponge but the buttercream was delicious. Everyone else who had one said they couldn’t tell it was a packet mix and thought the cupcakes were made from scratch so maybe I’m just being fussy.
For me I’m not sure if I would use them again but then I enjoy the whole process of baking; from creaming the butter and sugar to folding in the flour, I find it quite therapeutic. I would recommend these kits to those of you who want to get into baking but are nervous or if you want to bake with children as there is very little weighing and measuring involved.
Thanks to The Little Sins Cupcakery for sending me this product out to review. I’ll definitely pass some of the other boxes on to friends so they can try them out too.
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