Each Package of Jiffy Mix Baked and Tasted
Jiffy bakeware mixes are iconic and delicious, but you’ve probably only used one or two, and one of them was probably corn muffin mix. But there are many other mixtures worth exploring, and since I’m a dedicated food investigative journalist, I decided to test every little blue box I could find.
In all fairness, most of the time Jiffy mixes are misused. I know someone who uses a mixture of chocolate muffins to make cookies and my family has been using a mixture of corn muffins in our corn casserole for years. I could write a completely separate article on this off-label use, but I wanted to give the mixes a chance to break out of their secondary roles and really shine (or fade) on their own. I ordered them all.
The experiment lasted an entire day in the kitchen, but – apart from the standing ones – it was an easy job. Aside from chic retro packaging, the real beauty of Jiffy blends is how cheap and easy they are to make. Most mixes require an egg (no more than one) and some milk or butter, but some require just a little water. They also make about half the “normal” size batch of what you do, which is fine if you live alone and only want six cakes in one sitting, not twelve. As you might expect, some were good, some were mediocre, and some were bad. Let’s start with the winners.
Things I’ll Buy Again: Cakes and a Few Cupcakes
There were four boxes of concoction that I really enjoyed eating, and I will present them in order of pleasure (first to last):
Corn muffin mix
It shouldn’t surprise anyone that this one succeeded. If you take a look at the photo in the headline, you’ll notice that instead of the usual ‘Compare and Save’ label, there is a confident ‘America’s Favorite’, and I can see why. Cupcakes are beautiful, soft, soft, salty, slightly sweet and full of banal flavor. They’re not exactly cornbread – which, in my opinion, the Mississippi native should only be savory – but they are delicious and slightly addictive.
Fudzhi Brownie Mix
I love a good brownie mix and this one is damn delicious. Only the top is to blame: it is a little dull and lacks the shiny, cracked topping that is so strongly associated with chocolate brownies. Despite this drawback, I was satisfied with the game. The edges were crispy and chewy, the middle was full-bodied, firm and sweet, and the taste was, of course, very chocolatey.
Blueberry and Raspberry Muffin Mix
“Healthy” cupcakes are a lie. Like, stop misleading people. The amount of bran you have to add to a muffin to make it really good for you has an unpleasant effect on both texture and taste, so let’s focus on making the muffins what they should be: slightly less sweet muffins without glaze. Both of these muffins fit the bill in this regard, they are quite fluffy and sweet with a fruity flavor that reminds me of breakfast cereals. (Have you eaten a blueberry morning ? Imagine a blueberry morning bun.)
The small dehydrated fruit pieces are evenly distributed throughout the mixture and remain there during baking, which means there are at least a few tiny berries in each piece. While blueberry has a classic flavor that perfectly dividing the line between “sweet enough” and “sugary,” the raspberry muffin is a little brighter, brighter and slightly more unexpected, as if the blueberry muffin had a slightly more fun cousin.
The Bores: beige muffins and biscuits
Then there were the goods that were just normal. These concoctions were by no means offensive, other than how easy they were to forget, but for less than a dollar a box, how can I be offended? (Not good.)
Buttermilk Biscuit Mix
You can prepare these guys in two ways: drop-style or roll-em-out-and-cut-em-out. I’ve done both. For how easy it is to make them – you literally just add water, stir, knead three times and toss or roll – that’s not bad.
They’re not very good either. Although they are excellent baked, all beautiful and fluffy, they are quite soft and completely devoid of the “buttermilk” inherent in “buttermilk biscuit”. However, the smoothness is fairly easy to fix and I had no problem eating them with a little oil. They would also be a good, cheap and easy option if you are going to use them as a remedy for something super aromatic. (Not for sausage gravy; gravy biscuits are a dish that should be made up of only the finest biscuits and the finest gravy.)
Other beige and brown muffins
Aside from the corn muffins (which I think are more yellow anyway), all the beige and brown muffins are underwhelming. The banana reminded me of the essential oil I had to synthesize in the office lab , the chocolate wasn’t chocolate enough, and the oatmeal made me want oatmeal cookies and then failed to satisfy that craving. The cinnamon apple muffins were so memorable that I almost forgot to mention them just now. My notes simply say, “Apple cinnamon is good.”
Disappointments: cakes, frosting and crust
Now we have to discuss the boxes that I would no longer tinker with. They were baked goods that I ended up throwing away because I didn’t want to eat them and didn’t think anyone else would either. Let’s start with the least offensive one.
Cake, cake, cake (and frosting)
The cakes featured on the cake mix boxes are tall, proud and fluffy. In reality, however, things are much worse. (This could be because I don’t have upper body strength and so the prescribed five minutes of hand stirring did little, but I doubt it.)
The yellow cake mix requires a whole egg, while the white requires only white, but both have the texture and flavor of store-bought angel food cake. Both cakes were very firm, but a little dry, and they stuck to my teeth so I didn’t feel like eating them. It was also a small note, with that note being sweet, without any of the other buttery nuances that usually come with a baked pie. The frosting was no better.
The fiction glaze was the most problematic. I continued to add boiling water to it, but it still did not spread. It was dull and tough, tasted like Tutsi Rolls, and seemed to like himself more than pie.
The white frosting could at least be spread on, but it was excruciatingly sweet and did nothing to contribute to the tasteless but very sweet cake.
Pizza mix
I almost feel bad about it, since I knew it wouldn’t be that good. The pizza on the box doesn’t even look good.
Basically, this crust tasted like a school cafeteria pizza crust: soft, flat, and completely chewless. I ate half a slice and felt sad, but I gave up and took the cheese off the rest of the pie.
But it wasn’t the worst crust.
Crusty Pie Mix
I am to blame for some of the pie crust problems. First, my pie plate was too big. The mixture is supposed to have enough batter for a 9 “double crust pie, but I only had a 10” deep pie plate so I used that. For this reason, I did not expect to get saturated with the double crust, but I did expect a little more dough to be left after rolling out the bottom crust.
But even if a pan of the correct size was used and there was enough dough in there, it still wouldn’t be a good dough. It was not flaky, it had no smell, not even a hint of butter, and it was thick and mealy. In short, I didn’t like it.
However, I hate to end on a sad note, so I once again confess my love for corn muffins. These corn muffins are flawless and this little box of mixture will always have a place in my closet. I will rotate these cakes too; they are hard to beat at this price point.