Dr. Oetker Bake In The Box

Easter holidays are starting tomorrow, and you might be making plans on what to do with children for 17 school-free days. If you travel far to warmer climes, I wish you a safe journey. If you stay at home like us, then we have to come up with contingency plans for any weather.
On a rainy day, how about a baking session with children? Either make a cake from scratch, or take it easy and use a cake mix.

Have you seen a new range of Dr Oetker Bake in the Box loaf cake mixes?
They come in three delicious flavours - Lemon & Poppy seed, Banana & Choc Chip and Double Chocolate.
They are top notch easy bakes and cakes. You just add milk to the cake mix which comes in a pouch inside the box, and bake in the box itself, so there is no need for any extra prep or washing.
The cakes are baked beautifully inside the cardboard boxes, and it takes just about half an hour from the start to finish.
Imagine you have surprise guests and would love to treat them to something sweet. What could be easier?

The first cake mix we tried was Banana & Choc Chip, as selected by my elder son, as he loves banana bakes and choc chips too.

You don't need to add anything but milk to the cake mix, but I always jazz up any cake mix I buy.
I added 1 egg to each cake mix and 1-2tbsp melted butter or oil, and a little bit of something like a few chopped chocolate buttons.
This is what a raw banana cake looks like, just before going into the oven.

You need to take the cake out after 10 minutes of baking to score a neat middle, but if you don't mind slightly wonky, off-side cakes, then don't worry if you forget to do it.
Here is the baked result. You need to carefully open the box to take the cake out.

The banana cake was sweet and fluffy. My children loved it. I still think that a banana bread made with fresh mashed bananas has a superior taste, but don't scorn this little bake. It's lovely with a cup of tea. 

The next cake mix to test was a Lemon & Poppy Seed. I love this combination of flavours, and this cake was my top choice of the three.

I added 1 egg, 1tbsp of mild olive oil, zest of 1 lemon and 1tbsp of lemon juice.
I also made a thin icing from the icing sugar mixed with lemon juice and decorated the cake with mini jellies.
As you can see, I haven't scored the cake in time, so it split in the middle on its own accord.

It was zingy, light, lemony and with a nice addition of poppy seeds. A real winner.

And finally the chocolate cake... I've added 1tbsp of oil, 1 medium egg and 1 heaped tbsp of chocolate hazelnut spread (like Nutella, only less sugary).

We've decorated the cake with Dr Oetker Unicorn Chips, which look very pretty. As we were putting them on top of a still pretty warm cake, the chips started to melt.

It was a moist, very chocolatey cake. Judging by how quickly it disappeared - it didn't last 24 hours - this was the best cake, according to my family.

Have you tried any of the new Dr Oetker Bake in the Box cakes?

Disclosure: I received three boxes of cake mix for the purposes of testing and reviewing. All opinions are our own.