I have never claimed to be a very good cook but I do like to bake and baked goods are one of the few food items that I can get everyone in my family to at least try! Babycakes makes baking easy. I was asked to review their Cupcake Maker, which says that it can make 8 mini cupcakes in 5-8 minutes. So, my 3 year old and I put it to the test!
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| Getting all our ingredients ready. |
Since I was enlisting the help of my 3 year old, we made our first test drive simple and selected a recipe in the Babycakes recipe book that uses 1/2 store bought mix along with eggs, water and oil. This also allowed me to include my son in the mixing process as we baked.
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| Helping Mommy mix the batter. |
Using the machine was easy – we filled the batter into the cupcake cups (sans paper baking cups) and closed the lid for the 5-6 minute baking time. I’m easily distracted with a 1 and 3 year old roaming, so I used our microwave to time the baking process. I shot for 5 minutes mark just to be sure I didn’t over bake and tested with a toothpick.
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| Baking our Babycakes!!! |
I have a tendency to overfill, and while I followed the “only 2 tbsp” per cupcake holder, I still managed to be slightly too full but not terribly. You can see I got a bit heavy handed with the top cupcakes which are a bit browner and was more conservative on the first 3 at the bottom. 🙂
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| Our first batch. |
I mentioned that I didn’t use the paper baking cups. I did so because 1) I didn’t have any in the mini size and 2) I promised the boys we would make them before discovering my said lack of the mini size and they were not too into going out in 95+ degree weather at that point! So, this provided me with the perfect opportunity to see what the clean up would be like. As you can see, after 3 batches, there was a bit of a mess to clean up.
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| The leftovers to clean. |
Turns out, cleaning this mess was easy. I used an old burp cloth since it wasn’t as big as a kitchen towel and allowed me to get into the nooks and crannies. I’d say it took me about 1/4 of a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse episode to clean out thoroughly using only some water.
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| A happy customer! |
Even though he was too little to help mix and pour, my littlest man is more than happy to be a taste tester!
My overall impression of the Babycakes Cupcake Maker is that it is a great multi-functional machine. In addition to making cupcakes, you can definitely think outside the box with the Babycakes cupcake maker. Pies, scones, brownies, muffins… all with one machine. I would probably stick to the old way of making a big batch of cupcakes, but if you are looking for just a few for a small playdate, this is perfect. I also believe that this is a great machine to try to experiment with something you normally wouldn’t make (scones, anyone?). For our next neighborhood gathering I’ll try little strawberry cheesecakes for the adults and brownie bites for the kids!
*Disclosure: I wrote this review while participating in a campaign by Mom Central Consulting on behalf of Babycakes and received a product sample and a promotional item to thank me for taking the time to participate.
Philaburban Mom 