My girls have been after me for a while to buy them more mixes for their Easy Bake Oven. And, while the inner child in me is as drawn to the beautifully packaged treats in the toy aisle, as my girls are, there is the reality of the obvious waste in paying triple or quadruple the price of a full sized cake mix, for the tiny, and not so tasty versions, prepared for light bulb baking.
I finally got around to Googling homemade Easy Bake Oven recipes. It turns out there are quite a few. We (the girls, and my inner child), have great plans to try them all, and post our favorites.Most of them require some sort of oil, or butter, that would prevent them from being mixed ahead, for easy, child friendly use. Though my older girls could certainly handle a little mixing, it does up the mess factor, and requires some supervision.
We did see though, that many sites suggested a simple recipe of 3 tablespoons of any packaged cake mix, and one tablespoon of water, or milk. That sounded pretty simple, perhaps too simple - just the kind of starting place we like. We actually wondered which would be better water, or milk?
So, last night, the girls tried both versions. They made one cake with 3 tablespoons of Duncan Hines white cake mix, and one tablespoon of water, and another with 3 tablespoons of the same cake mix, and 1 tablespoon of milk, baking them each for 12 minutes in their little oven.
The results were interesting. The cake with water (pictured below, on the left) looked better. It rose more, and looked generally fluffier, and more cake like.
But, despite a better showing, after sampling the two cakes, the girls declared the cake with milk, the hands down winner. It had a thicker, creamer texture, and tasted more like a regular cake.
We measured out the rest of the open cake mix into snack sized, resealable baggies. We ended up with 18 baggies, each with 3 tablespoons of mix, which I stored back in the original cake box. We often find cake mixes for under a dollar, and the baggies were about two cents a piece - bringing our Easy Bake Oven back into the world of affordable fun.
It's great to be a homeschooler.
Hmm, I definitely see an Easy Bake somewhere in our future, and it's good to know that these alternatives to expensive packets are available. I like your little taste experiment - you are ever a scientist :)
ReplyDeleteThank- AGAIN- for doing the work FOR me...you are just so considerate...
ReplyDeleteI never thought to search for Easy Bake recipes on-line. Thanks for the tip. My daughter is always asking to make cookies in her oven. Now, I can offer even more! Thanks so much!
ReplyDeleteOh man, this is so good to know because I'm sure we'll be getting one of these at some point for Princess.
ReplyDeleteAnd to answer your question/statement. Yes, a dragonfly has 4 wings on it, and that is what is wrong with ours.
Thanks so much for the recipe - I have an easy bake oven sitting in the basement from the 80's, waiting for my kids to get old enough. I've seen the prices of the Easy Bake mixes - who wants to pay $10+ for cake mix for a tiny little cake! I bake cakes a lot milk is much better; I agree :o)
ReplyDeleteI have 3 girls and I bought one easybake years ago and honestly I tell people not to waste the money. While it is fun, things get too easily stuck in the oven and you get so much more when you back in the big oven. If you want some fun "kid" sized bakeware to make it more kid friendly, try looking in antique stores for the old baking tins or go to Ikea and look at the kids baking sets. They have stuff that you can really use in the oven and then you won't have to worry about it getting stuck in the Easybake. Which I have found over the years not so easy to bake in!
ReplyDeleteI know in college we would mix diet pop top a cake mix and them microwave it. The cakes were really good too! I wonder if this would work with an easy bake oven too.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for posting your test results! I'm buying an EasyBake Oven for a sponsored child for Christmas and wanted to get extra mixes. She's in a family of 8 kids and you know big brothers will want light-bulb cakes! Thanx to you, I found several cake mixes for around $1 and could afford to get sprinkles and frosting too! She'll be making cakes til Easter!
ReplyDeleteMy girls have been after me for a while to buy them more mixes for their Easy Bake Oven. And, while the inner child in me is as drawn to the ... ebakeoven.blogspot.com
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