Carr’s Cake Mixes Review

Reviewed by Deborah Banasko

The only thing better than a luxury cake has to be five luxury cakes, right? I feel incredibly lucky to be reviewing the 5 Carr’s Cake Mixes; Lemon Cake, Carrot Cake, Salted Caramel Cake, Chocolate Cake and the classic Victoria Sponge,
You can create cakes, cupcakes or even tray-bakes, and the mix contains natural flavours and colours. Whilst the box details how to create a large cake, you can scan the QR code on the box to access the instructions for the alternative bakes. There are also the basic recipes on the website, as well as some more complex and fancy bakes using the mixes which are definitely worth looking at!

The packaging is really effective with each flavour having a coloured theme. These aren’t your bargain shop cake mixes and they aren’t targeted purely for children as they have a more luxurious look about them. They aren’t cheap bakes for the sake of baking; with these you get the flavour and quality as well as the ease.

The method is simple; the cake mix is emptied into the bowl (no need to sieve), add the oil/butter and the water then mix. Whisk up the 3 eggs, then add them to the mixture. Pour the mixture into the cake tin or muffin cases and bake.
I would recommend using a deep bowl as there is a lot of mixture and it isn’t the easiest to mix. It is quite a thick batter and a little tricky to stir at times, especially for younger children as mine did struggle to mix it. It makes a good sized cake which serves 12 (or 10 if you are greedy) so there is no compromise there.

We decided to make some large cakes with our mixes, and some muffins. The muffins were incredibly light and fluffy, far better in texture than what my children usually bake as they love to beat the air out of a batter. The top of the cakes had a little crunch which I love.

We made chocolate muffins as my kids aren’t fans of a very chocolaty large cake so I didn’t want to overload them with the chocolate buttercream suggested on the pack. Surprisingly, the chocolate flavour wasn’t too overpowering so the buttercream would have complimented it well. I think that chocolate chips or chunks would have worked well in the muffins too. They were really delicious and moreish.

We made a large cake with the lemon mix and bought the suggested ingredients to decorate, which included butter, icing sugar, a lemon, cream and lemon curd. This cake was absolutely divine; the lemon flavour was perfect and the texture light and spongy. I am glad that we went with the suggested decoration as it complemented the flavours perfectly. This is certainly one I plan to stock up on again.

Our favourite was surprisingly the salted caramel, as this isn’t usually my first choice, but this came down to the well balanced flavours and the decoration too as my extended family assumed that I had bought it from a bakery. This is just personal preference; all of the cake flavours were top quality.

The beauty of buying a cake mix is that you still have most of the baking experience with your children or even for yourself, but there is less mess and you save money on the little extras used to create the different flavours. I cannot tell you how many random out-of-date ingredients I have used once and thrown away. As you would expect, the cost is higher using this method once you buy the three eggs and oil/butter on top of the cake mix cost.

I love that having one of these mixes in the cupboard means you can create a top quality bake in no time, if you have someone visiting or just need something to do on a rainy day. There is no hassle provided you have eggs and oil in the cupboard.

The drawback for me comes to the decoration, as this adds another cost on top of the £2.50 per mix, the oil and eggs. However the large decorated cake produced is of the highest quality, and it is still likely to be cheaper than you could buy in a bakery plus you had the pleasure of baking it at home. For the Victoria Sandwich, we just used jam in the centre so you can keep things basic and reduce the cost. Yet for a carrot cake you do really need the proper cream cheese frosting in my opinion, and I was glad that we did as it was the most perfect carrot cake.

The £2.50 price point is very reasonable and competitive for the quality in taste and texture, plus you can experiment with the different packs using the online recipes. I just feel that some elements of the decorations could have been added, even if this increased the cost of the cake mix slightly, as the idea of these is convenience. For example the icing sugar, some of the flavourings, jams or spreads could be included in the pack as I did find having to shop for some of these extras (to create the perfect result) a bit frustrating.

This is a quick and easy home bake; perfect if you want to bake with the kids or alone but are limited on time or ingredients yet you want to create an amazing flavour. I would rate these Carr’s Cake Mixes 4 stars out of 5.

Rating: 4/5 stars

RRP: £12.50 bundle (£2.50 per individual pack)

Carr’s Cake Mixes can be purchased here.