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Duncan Hines Frosting Creations, reviewed

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Duncan Hines Frosting Creations

Frosting Creations are a new product from Duncan Hines that attempts to revolutionize canned frosting. Canned frostings typically come in basic flavors, such as chocolate and vanilla. With Frosting Creations, you get a can of plain frosting and can choose from a variety of flavorings to add to it to make flavors that are much more distinctive than those you’ll usually find in the baking aisle. There are a dozen flavors and they include Caramel, Cherry Vanilla and White Chocolate Raspberry, as well as over the top kid flavors, like Cotton Candy and Bubble Gum. The flavors are concentrated and come in a powder that you simply stir into the plain frosting.

I don’t typically use canned frosting, but I usually have one tucked away in the back of the pantry just in case, and I admit that I was very curious about how these new flavors would taste – especially some of the flavors that had a more “premium” sound to them.

The base frosting was your typical canned frosting, creamy and sweet but with little flavor. The flavor packets stirred in easily, with a little bit of vigorous stirring with a knife or spatula. I tried Orange Creme, Caramel and Bubble Gum. Orange Creme promised to be a creamsicle flavor and it did add a subtle orange flavor to the frosting. It was even better with a little bit of orange zest added to it, which popped the citrus more and let the frosting provide the vanilla. Bubble Gum looked and tasted like, well, bubble gum. It was not something I would eat again in all honesty – but I do know a few kids who loved it (especially on a chocolate cupcake) because they had never had anything like it before. My favorite was caramel, which did have a nice caramel flavor and tempered the sweetness of the plain frosting a bit. It’s still not going to replace homemade, but it was a lot more interesting than most canned frostings I’ve had and would be great on a yellow cake.

Overall, I think that this is a really fun concept and can deliver a lot more flavor options than you could find with off-the-shelf frostings. It’s fun to play with the flavors (especially if kids are involved) and couldn’t be easier.

And if you want to know a little secret, you can use these flavoring packets with homemade frostings (American buttercream made with butter, confectioners’ sugar and milk) for a very easy way to change the flavor of your frosting but start with a little bit tastier base.

Duncan Hines Frosting Creations cupcakes

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31 Comments
  • Zita
    April 17, 2012

    What about the other way around? That’s what I was curious about when I first saw these advertised. Would the base frostings work without the flavor packets so you could add your own flavorings? Or is there some chemical reaction that makes them forever bound?

  • Patsy
    April 17, 2012

    I’ve seen these in the grocery store and wondered what the story was on them. Thanks for the review!

  • Nicole
    April 17, 2012

    Zita – You could certainly use the base frostings for your own add-ins (maybe extracts, zest, etc.). As far as I can tell, they’re pretty much the same as your average vanilla frosting base and would take well to the addition of other elements.

  • Zita
    April 18, 2012

    Sweet! Thanks Nicole! BTW love your blog and these product reviews – very helpful!

  • beccaeve
    April 22, 2012

    Thanks for the review. I keep seeing coupons for these, but my grocery store hasn’t stocked them yet.

    I’m actually curious to get my hands on the flavoring packets. I’m wondering what other things I might be able to flavor with them. Do you think they might take heat OK? I was thinking it might be cool to make a cotton candy cupcake with them or something.

  • CreativeFrosting
    April 26, 2012

    I don’t use the Duncan Hines basic frosting, I make my own and just add one of the flavoring packets to my own. It taste way better without that after taste basic frosting uses.

  • Ashley M
    May 6, 2012

    Nice to see a review on these. I do doubt, however, that the flavor packs take away the terrible canned flavor. 😉

  • samantha
    May 13, 2012

    How fun!!!!! I can’t say enough good things about the frosting. I was very happy with how easy it was to mix the packet into the frosting base. I tried Raspberry white chocolate and mint chocolate. I made cupcakes for mother’s day. We were very please and can not wait to try other flavors.

  • Diana
    May 15, 2012

    Good idea. Frosting still has the awfull can taste. The consistency is very soft. Frosting slowly slid off cupcakes even though the room was not overly warm

  • Kim
    May 21, 2012

    I tried the caramel flavor with the base frosting. The taste was great but the consistency was too thin. The frosting literally slid down the sides of my layer cake. In the future I will add the flavor packets to my own frosting.

  • Donna
    May 28, 2012

    I need to know where store to get these.

    I live in Welland, Ontario, Canada.

    Please email me to tell me as I would love to try it/

    Thank you.

    Donna.

  • Aly Schmitt
    June 4, 2012

    I ruined a cake with this new frosting creation. Awful. I threw the cake out. I have never seen frosting like this. Runny, greasy, horrible.

  • Jaynee
    June 5, 2012

    I have made these with the cherry vanilla frosting creations and the chocolate marshmallow frosting creations. With the cherry vanilla I made my own homeade buttercream frosting and added the packet and it turned out wonderfully and tasted WAY BETTER than canned frosting. With the chocolate marshmallow I made my own homeade chocolate frosting and added the packet and it also turned out AWESOME. I plan o trying most all of them and making homeade frosting. They say you have to use the Duncan Hines frosting because they want you to buy their frosting. It will work just as well if not better in homeade frosting and taste way better. These are great!!!!

  • MTM
    July 2, 2012

    I added the flavors to cake mixes too! Works wonderful!

  • Annette
    July 24, 2012

    I took the caramel, added some sea salt and coconut and made a quick and dirty approximation of German chocolate cake frosting (allergic to pecans) it was not bad! The sea salt was key though.

  • JMK
    July 29, 2012

    This was a horrible mess. I frosted 4 dozen cupcakes for a reception and used the bubblegum and the caramel flavored frosting. The next afternoon when I drove them a half hour away to the place of the party, the frosting slid off the tops of the cupcakes and were impossible to save. I wasted all that time and money, and didn’t have a nice dessert to serve. Very disappointing. Don’t bother with these.

  • Karina
    September 8, 2012

    I tried the Mocha flavor.It didn’t seem to stir in well, left the fronting with a gritty texture.It also had a bitter aftertaste.I’ll stick with making my own!

  • Donna
    September 12, 2012

    I gave one of the flavor packets with the Duncan Hines starter mix a try. As a couple of other folks stated, it was on the runny side. My friend that was helping suggested putting the frosting mix in the fridge before trying to spread it on my cupcakes. Unfortunately, that didn’t seem to help much either. I was really excited when I first saw these advertised. I’m thinking it might be a better idea to use some of the different flavors available in the bottles.

  • Linda
    September 15, 2012

    I tried the caramel frosting on pumpkin spice cupcakes. I wish I had done research ahead of time before I bought the product. The icing had a runny consistency and did not stay on the cupcakes. I will not purchase this icing again.

  • Natalie
    October 3, 2012

    These are awesome! Just use buttercream and perfect! I never use canned icing so I had no problem.

  • bonnie
    October 6, 2012

    I tried the chocolet almond. It had an artificial after taste. Don’t think I would try any more of this product.

  • Jess
    October 11, 2012

    I really think this was horrible. I tried the white chocolate raspberry and it was disgusting… super runny too. I ended up throwing out 24 sad little cupcakes. nasty! two thumbs down!!

  • Donna
    October 20, 2012

    This is what I posted on FaceBook!

    Just curious to know if anyone, besides me, has noticed what Duncan Hines is doing???

    Their frosting was, for quite a long time, $1.49 a container…. Now they are no longer making it like that, you have to buy their “Frosting Creations”. About $2.98 for frosting and then $.99 for flavoring. They use whipped frosting, which I don’t ever buy, and not enough flavoring. The frosting can looks bigger, but they state they left room for mixing!

    Won’t buy again!

  • Karen
    October 24, 2012

    I bought the frosting with the chocolate almond this past weekend. Boy, was I disappointed!! Couldn’t even taste any almond in it and it was a big runny mess! Won’t ever try this again!! Unfortunately, I gave some to my daughter to ice cupcakes with! Wish I had just bought regular icing or made my own!! Don’t buy this!!

  • Dar
    November 9, 2012

    I mixed the Apple pie with a 8 oz cream cheese and added a little brown sugar(taste to make sure its sweet enough). used it for bagels. It was really good.

  • Dorothy Inman
    March 23, 2013

    I bought some DuncanHines coconut Pecan frosting, and the nuts in it taste OLD, I am realy disapointed too, because I always felt good in purchasing, DuncanHines cale mixes and frosting thanks Dorothy Inman

  • Sue
    May 19, 2013

    I was thinking about adding these to my own icing since I received about a dozen for free due to a promo they had last month. I did buy some canned icing, which I don’t usually use, to try it both ways. It’s a bit pricy compared to making my own buttercream.

  • Wendi
    May 20, 2013

    I used the strawberry shortcake flavour in a whip cream icing on an angel food cake with fresh strawberries, it was so good. I’m going to try other flavours in whip cream.

  • Melissa Gauld
    May 19, 2014

    I love the frosting creations, not only for frosting but they are great in coffee as well. I also bet they would be great to flavor hot chocolate as well.

  • Melissa Gauld
    May 19, 2014

    as for mixing with frosting. I buy the cheapest frosting I can find to mix it with. The frosting that they sell to use it with is made thinner for easier mixing. I just put a can of cheap frosting in a larger container, add the flavoring and mix. if you are getting a bad taste you may be adding just a little to much of the flavoring. just because they give you that amount does not mean you have to use it all. add a little at time until it taste good to you. and if it does not taste strong enough add a little bit more from another packet. Remember you are the baker. We all have different taste. so play with it, have fun. Oh yeah, try some in your coffee. just open the little package, put about half a teaspoon in your cup add a little sugar and cream if you want. I love my coffee with the chocolate mint.

  • […] read some reviews claiming it’s the most vile stuff on earth and others claiming it’s n0t so bad. I imagine if you make your own frosting from scratch this would be terrible, but for those of us […]

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