Betty Crocker, Move Over!
The other day, I was shopping at Williams-Sonoma, looking for a heart-shaped cake pan. Surprisingly, I didn’t find one. What I did find, was an interesting-looking product called Sprinkles Cupcake Mix. I had seen these mixes in the store before, but the flavors never called out to me, so I just passed them by. This particular one, however, was sweetly singing my name. It was a mix to make Red Velvet cupcakes. With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, I thought that Red Velvet cupcakes sounded like a pretty good idea. I also liked the fact that the ingredients were all packaged inside a self-contained tubular box. So, I bought a box and went home to make cupcakes.
Sprinkles Cupcakes is a mini baking empire that started with pastry chef, Candace Nelson’s very popular, original cupcake bakery in trendy Beverly Hills, California. She and her husband, Mark now have four other boutique cupcake shops with plans to open around a dozen more.
For those unlucky ones who don’t live near a Sprinkles Bakery (like me), Nelson offers these mixes as a consolation prize of sorts. Each mix includes high quality ingredients, including rich Callebaut cocoa and Nielsen-Massey Madagascar Bourbon vanilla. Also in each mix is Sprinkle’s signature confectioners’ “dots” used to adorn the cupcakes. While there is no frosting mix in the box there is simple recipe for a cream cheese frosting included. The only place I’ve ever seen Sprinkles Cupcake Mixes is at William-Sonoma and on their web site. I didn’t find any other retailer information on the Sprinkles web site.
Now, let me tell you right up front that this cupcake mix is probably not like the “add water and stir” cake mixes you might be used to. There actually is a bit more work involved. In fact, I was surprised to find that the directions were quite detailed. There are also several additional ingredients required in order to pull these cupcakes off. But, since all of the dry ingredients are already combined in one nifty plastic bag, you won’t have to mess with measuring any of them out.
I really liked the way the finished cupcakes turned out. Instead of being Day-Glo red, they had the most beautiful and natural looking, dark beet red color. They were dense, moist and flavorful, very much like homemade. I could definitely taste the cocoa in them. With a swirl of rich cream cheese frosting on top, no one would ever guess that you didn’t make them from scratch. Betty Crocker, move over!
