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FoodStirs Baking Subscription Box Review + Coupon – May 2017

Marne Orenich
ByMarne OrenichMay 31, 2017 | 13 comments

Foodstirs
4.3 overall rating
8 Ratings | 2 Reviews

FoodStirs is a baking subscription box that ships baking mixes kits to your door! Co-founded by Sarah Michelle Gellar, this subscription is all about high-quality, pre-made mixes with no preservatives or artificial ingredients. 

My Subscription Addiction paid for this box. (Check out the review process post to learn more about how we review boxes.)

The Subscription Box: FoodStirs

The Cost: $19.99 per month with free shipping. Discounts are available for longer subscriptions.

DEAL - Use coupon code MSA30 to get a 3-month subscription for $29 (regularly $59) and free shipping. That brings the total down to just $9.66/month for 3 months!

The Products: High quality, pre-made mixes with no preservatives or artificial ingredients. 

Ships to: United States, but they have an international waitlist, so be sure to sign up if you're interested!

Check out all of our FoodStirs reviews and the Food Subscription Box Directory!

Keep Track of Your Subscriptions: Add this box to your subscription list or wishlist!

This month's recipe is for Rainbow Cake Pops! The first card tells you what's included in the box, what you'll need to buy, and what kitchen tools you'll need. It is here that I sighed relief that the cupcake papers came with this package, because I don't have any on hand, and if I bought them, they'd sit in my cupboard for years. In other words, I'm an eager, yet very, very amateur baker.

On the flip-side, there are step-by-step instructions on what you'll be doing. I got my first glimpse at the 6 different bowls of dye and started to worry that I got myself in over my head already.

The next card has a few tips on one side...

...and nutrition facts and ingredients on the other.

Let's get started with the cake mix! First things first, you're going to make the cake batter by combining the provided vanilla mix with the eggs, butter, milk, and yogurt. That's the easy part that I am well-versed in.

The next items we have are the cupcake papers. Once you have your cake mix ready, you'll divide it all up evenly in the 12 cups (in a cupcake pan). Then you pop it in the oven for about 20 mins while you prep your food coloring!

You have three packets of food coloring, which you'll be using to make the 6 colors of the rainbow while those cupcakes are baking. Here's where the 6 bowls come into play. You start with a measured-out amount of milk in each (they mentioned this tip on the card: warm milk will mix easier), then follow the recipe's dye ratios to get the desired colors. You'll end up with the basic yellow, blue, and red/pink, as well as green, purple, and orange! I was worried that I'd mess up the ratios, since it called for 1/8 teaspoon, which I had to sort of guesstimate with my smallest 1/4 teaspoon. It turned out great though!

Ack! The white chocolate chips. This is where things went a little awry for me. I thought I'd get a jumpstart on melting the chocolate while I was waiting for the cupcakes to cool, especially since you know I don't have a microwave (which is how the recipe called for you to melt them). I knew I'd have to go double-boiler style on my stove, so I knew it'd take a little longer. Bad idea. Basically, I got it all melty and gooey, and I grossly underestimated how long it'd take to make and form the actual cake balls.

Once the cupcakes are cool, you crumble two into each bowl of milk/food coloring, kneading it around with your fingers to form a mushy dough. Once you've done this six times, you will begin assembling the cake balls one by one. The recipe says to take a 1/2 teaspoon of each color, plopping one on top of another, on a sheet of plastic wrap. Once you get the colors stacked up, you wrap it up to form a little ball, then take it out of the plastic and place it on a cookie sheet. The recipe says this makes 20 cake pops, but I set a mere goal of 10, realizing how involved the process was.

I had to turn down the chocolate for fear of it burning, and then when I went to reheat it again, it was not as free-flowing as it was the first time. Live and learn, I suppose. Maybe if any of you out there are bakers, you have a tip for me? I'm a chocolate-melting novice.

After cooling all of those rainbow cake balls in the freezer for a few minutes, you're going to take your cake pop sticks and dip them into the melted white chocolate before thrusting them into the center of the cake pop. Once you've got it in there, you'll twirl that little pop in there as well as you can to coat it in creamy white sweetness. I used a spoon to help cover it as well.

Finally, the easy and fun part! Once you've got your cake pops dipped and put back on the cookie sheet, you're free to toss some of these colored sprinkles atop your creation (or as I lovingly called mine, "monsters").

Here we have my little creatures. Perhaps only a mother could love them, but we went through a lot together. All in all, they came out pretty decent.

They probably won't make it to the cover of a magazine, but I made them with my own two hands, which is cool!

Verdict: Real talk, these were very time consuming to make by myself (I'll probably stick to the ones at Starbucks if I get a craving), but I could see this being a fun project with a loved one. A friend of mine and I totally thought since we watched a lot of baking videos on Instagram that we could easily open up our own bakery. That is, until we had a cookie bake-off, and I had a very serious meltdown several hours in. Baking is NO JOKE! That being said, the value is absolutely here, since it's only $19.99 and it makes 20 pops, which would probably cost you around $2.00/each at a store.

And if you sign up for 3 months with our MSA30 coupon code, this box is under $10 a month! That's definitely a good value if you want to try it for yourself!

What do you think of Foodstirs? Did you make this month's cake pops? Do you have any secrets about melting chocolate?

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"Create memories in the kitchen with our simply delicious baking kits & mixes delivered straight to your door. The Foodstirs Baker’s Club delivers a convenient and delicious cooking experience every other month. These custom curated themed kits take the guesswork out of planning and are sure ... read more.

Marne Orenich
Marne Orenich
Marne is a lipstick connoisseur, record collector, and twice over cat mom. She loves discovering new clean beauty brands and has quite the collection of beautifully packaged serums and moisturizers.

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13 comments

Angeline

I always think cake pops look so fiddly to make, so it was nice to have this reviewed by a fellow novice baker to get a sense of where the pitfalls are. Great review. 🙂

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jill

the website shows they ship on even months? so every other month. is this new?

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Michelle

Personally I think the pops came out beautifully. They look yummy and swirly and colorful!!

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Tiffany

Hey Marne!

The problem with your chocolate might have been that you tried to melt it in the plastic bag (I’m making the assumption from the picture where it’s melted in the photo). Chocolate and water do not mix so one drop of water would’ve coagulated your chocolate so as you were trying to melt it, the bag kept the condensation inside 🙁

Definitely use your double boiler but no bag and on a medium level. You want to slowly melt the chocolate (white chocolate isn’t actually chocolate though…neat little fact) so it doesn’t burn (and if you didn’t melt in the package that would’ve been the culprit instead, burnt chocolate).

You can try like Ms. Carrie mentioned with the oil or milk to add life back into it but once it’s burnt, it’s pretty much done. It’s like burning popcorn and trying to salvage with more flavor. ..yikes! You’ll get better with practice and that’s the fun part 🙂

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Alyce

I tried to purchase a 3month membership for my granddaughter and the site would not accept the MS30 code offer.

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Alyce

I have sent them an email asking about the offer.

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jill

it doesn’t work on the gift subscription – only the auto renew

Jaclyn Joerg

It’s MSA30, not MS30. Try that!

Carrie

if it had seized up, you could have tried adding a little bit of vegetable oil to it and stirring it as you reheated to try and smooth it out, but it’s definitely something you’re better off getting right on the first try 🙂

I still think it’s a bit pricey for what you’re getting. You can buy most of the supplies for this at the store and still save a few bucks (and make more pops!) but you would have leftover supplies which if you aren’t a big baker I could see being a waste 🙂

Your cake pops turned out cute though!

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Marne Orenich

Oooh, thanks for the tip, Carrie! I would definitely try that cooking oil next time I’m in a bind. Thanks for saying they turned out cute! 😀

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cookie

These are cute, my daughter would love them. Looks like a good baking project if you have kids.

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Marne Orenich

I agree that this would be a great project with kids! So colorful with a lot of steps to help!

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