Product Review: Duncan Hines and Comstock Fillings

As a part of the FoodBuzz Tastemaker Program, I recently received coupons to sample some Duncan Hines products as well as some Comstock Fruit Fillings. 

I'm not a big box cake mix fan. Almost all of them use hydrogenated oils (Duncan Hines is no exception), and aren't the easiest to veganize. Although I HEAR if you mix a can of pumpkin with the cake mix, it turns out great. Who knows. I've never tried it. 

I did manage to find a few Duncan Hines products that were not hydrogenated, including a carrot cake mix (all of their Decadent cake mixes are non-hydrogenated! and the carrot cake is the only one in the Decadent line that is vegan!) and a blueberry muffin mix (only the crumb topping was hydrogenated, so I threw it away and did not use it). Most of their box mixes are vegan, although I would read the labels to make sure. If you don't mind the hydrogronated oils, the regular cake mixes would be very easy to use. 

For my recipe, I used their Blueberry Streusal muffin mix.

Once I made the muffins vegan by using flax eggs instead of real eggs, I placed the mix into a muffin pan and placed a spoonful of Comstock cherry pie filling in each muffin. Comstock's cherry filling was very delicious, if you don't mind a little high fructose corn syrup. Not something I would eat everyday, but still, it's a pretty decent product. 

I also used the cherry pie filling to make a cherry butter spread for my muffins. Simply take some Earth Balance and mix it together with the pie filling. Ta-da! Flavored Earth Balance!

My muffins turned out great (see a photo below), although they were a little bit crumbly, but Duncan Hines, I have a suggestion for you. GET RID OF THE HYDROGENATED OILS FROM YOUR PRODUCTS. It's SO hard to find a cake mix that does not use them! They are terrible for you and you would have many more customers if you just eliminated that ingredient and used something else!

Overall, the muffin mix was okay, but I really look forward to trying that carrot cake! Maybe I'll try making it with a can of pumpkin instead of all the other ingredients and see how it turns out! 

Enjoy the eye candy!

Much love,