Review of Krusteaz Pumpkin Spice Supreme Muffin Mix

With early Saturday morning soccer games looming, we had to pick up a quick and easy to prepare breakfast. I had quick breads on my mind as I enjoy making them in the fall as they make the kitchen smell awesome; and they also seem heartier than firing up a pop tart or toaster strudel.  In addition, the kids were burned out on cereal and oatmeal from the school week. Our Friday night of shopping at Wal-Mart revealed Krusteaz pumpkin spice muffin mix. I enjoy a good homemade muffin/quick bread mix, but did not want to take the time late on a Friday to look up recipes. I was also uncertain if I would have all the baking essentials to make the old school muffins.  A quick bread boxed mix seemed like the quick and convenient way to satisfy the quick bread craving before the big games commenced on Saturday.

The Krusteaz package directions were pretty simple. I prepared the contents to be baked as a quick bread instead of muffins. I have come to the conclusion that muffins seems to dry out quicker than baking the batter in a small bread pan. The mixing of ingredients only took a few minutes and I placed the batter in a shallow eight inch pan. The baking time was approximately fifty minutes at 350 degrees.

 First and foremost, the baked bread did one heck of a job making my home smell good. The baking did a better job than any pumpkin or apple spice Glade freshener plug in. As far as physical appearance, the finished loaf of quick bread had a lighter color than those pumpkin breads that contained canned or real pumpkin fruit. The density of the bread was also much lighter than traditional pumpkin breads (made from canned pumpkin).

Our breakfast tasting was met with mixed results. The pumpkin quick bread came off tasty but seemed more to look and taste likes a light and airy spongy spice cake. I shouldn’t be overly critical of the flavor as pumpkin really does not maintain its own true taste, but is merely a compilation of a bunch of spices. It would have been much easier to accept the spice cake flavor as “pumpkin” if only the bread had carried forth that dense pumpkin finish that appeared to be lacking.

The price of this fifteen ounce box of Krusteaz pumpkin muffin mix was a mere $2.12, purchased at Wal-Mart. The price seemed somewhat reasonable for a light breakfast for our crew. The eight inch loaf allowed the five of us to have two decent sized slices. No one was overly hungry this early on a Saturday morning so the quantity proved to be enough for our group. I think if we would have had a later breakfast or even one more individual at that table, the quantity would have been insufficient for our group.

Overall, I rank this an average product at best. I will most likely not purchase this muffin mix again. I will actually take the time to make bread or muffins the “old fashioned way” using the Libby’s pumpkin filling and pudding mix and make extra to freeze for later dates.