In my eyes, there are only two kinds of ring-shaped confections. There are donuts, and there are doughnuts.
Donuts fit the technical definition of “sweet fried dessert made from yeast or cake,” but only doughnuts have that extra bit of greatness that sets them above other pastries. It could be a magical moistness, or perhaps a glaze that caresses my arteries with a loving embrace of death that whispers, “Shhh, no more tears. Only dreams now.”
The divine tastiness of doughnuts is right there in the name. DoUGHnuts: the very same ecstatic and nearly orgasmic “UGH” that I emit when biting into a decadent doughnut.
So that’s my one question for Betty Crocker’s Krispy Kreme Cake Mix. Is it gonna be a donut…or a doughnut?
The mix can be made into a cake or several cupcakes, but since I’m a grown ass man and not an elementary school kid forced to bring in treats for his own birthday (seriously, what’s up with that tradition?), I’m going to make a sheet of buttery flour that’s big enough to double as a pillow.
When it comes to baking, I’m a little less Wolfgang Puck and a little more Wolfgang “F*** It,” so I’m glad I only have to toss water, eggs, and oil into the mix and go (dough)nuts with a whisk.
I spend 40 agonizing minutes watching my oven gestate and give birth to a warm, custard-colored baby. It’s just like any real birth, only with more drool and a slightly lower chance of me soiling myself from exertion.
It’s a boy! Err…maybe a girl. Who cares: I’ll name it Kris.
Time for glazing. The box insists with odd specificity that I must squeeze the glaze pouch ten—count ‘em—ten (10) times before opening. I don’t want the vengeful ghost of Betty Crocker to bludgeon me with a stale Honey Cruller, so I follow orders.
The charming white goo inside tastes just like Krispy Kreme’s infamous glaze: a perfect, slightly gritty mix of sugar, corn syrup, milk, and magical unicorn blood (probably). It takes all the restraint I have to not plunge a Capri Sun straw into the pouch and suck it dry until I die shortly after.
After I glaze it like the world’s largest Toaster Strudel, my cake baby is ready for eating. Please don’t mention that last sentence at my future wife’s baby shower.
So what’s the verdict?
Dough yeah, baby.
The cake’s fluffy innards may be light and pillowy like most Betty Crocker cakes (and not at all like an actual doughnut), but the flavor differentiates itself with a noticeable sour cream tang and a pleasant lemon zest finish.
The real winning part of the cake is the gooey, sticky meeting point between golden browned cake and glaze. It does an admirable job of mimicking the fried and mouth-watering exterior of a Krispy Kreme. In fact, it’s so good that I was tempted to scalp my cake and eat just the top layer like a greedy child licking the creme from an Oreo.
With that being said, I was ready to give this cake mix top marks. But then I remembered that I could have walked down the grocery aisle and bought a half dozen actual Krispy Kremes for the same price, which would’ve been a whole lot more sour cream tang for my buck.
So while this Krispy Kreme mix rises above Betty Crocker’s other cake mixes, it doesn’t quite reach the level of the real, doughnutty thing.
If you wanna rise that high, Betty, you’re gonna need a lot more yeast.
(Nutrition Facts – 1/9 of cake as prepared – 280 calories, 100 calories from fat, 12 grams of fat, 2.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 45 milligrams of cholesterol, 230 milligrams of sodium, 42 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams dietary fiber, 28 grams of sugar, and 3 grams of protein..)
Item: Betty Crocker Krispy Kreme Cake Mix
Purchased Price: $2.69
Size: 16.3 oz. box
Purchased at: Meijer
Rating: 9 out of 10
Pros: Getting as close to a doughnut as a cake can possibly aspire. Golden brown cake scalps. Cryptozoological glaze. Watching the miracle of birth at 325 degrees Fahrenheit.
Cons: Still just a cake wearing a doughnut Halloween costume. Over-airy cake guts. Possibly divisive lemon flavor. Feeling glazed & confused after too much sugar.