Lemon loaf cake holds a sweet spot in my heart but I don’t make it very often. Not for any reason other than I don’t think about making it. When I do eat it I am reminded of how much I enjoy it and wonder why I don’t make it more often. At the store I found myself drawn to buying a lemon loaf mix but there were so many different options and I couldn’t determine which one would be best.
I settled on the Krusteaz “Meyer Lemon pound cake mix” and the Whitelily homemade southern classics “Lemon pound cake mix”. I picked these up at Walmart and they were only $.50 different in price with Krusteaz being more expensive. The packaging is so similar I can imagine it is pretty easy to grab the wrong one at the store if you just pick it up quickly.
Taking a closer look, the ingredients needed on the back are identical and the picture on the front is so similar as well. I started to wonder how different these two could be. The biggest difference I found was the cook time. With Whitelily’s requiring 50-60 minutes and the Krusteaz requiring 38-42 minutes. Let’s give them a side by side comparison and see which is better.
I hand mixed both boxes side by side with water, an egg, and melted butter. Whitelily’s mixture appeared to be slightly more yellow in color and thicker. The Krusteaz mixture was thin and very lumpy no matter how much I mixed I still couldn’t get all the lumps out and accepted my fate. The Whitelily’s batter tasted like a pound cake mix with a subtle lemon flavor to it. Krusteaz had a very sweet taste, almost overwhelmingly sweet, and was also very subtle with the lemon. I would have thought being a lemon loaf the batter would have a stronger lemon flavor but it seems both mixtures were on the same page and I did not get the memo that the lemon flavor primarily comes from the icing.
I chose to put them both in the oven at the same time side by side, rotating halfway through. I kept checking on them to make sure I didn’t over bake but at 38 minutes both still needed more cooking. I checked in at 42 minutes and tested both with a toothpick and surprisingly both were done at the same time despite Whitelily’s box asking for 50-60 minutes. I pulled them both out and again they looked fairly similar. Both had standard cracks down the middle and a bit of browning on the top. Whitelily’s loaf did have some more browning on top but not by much.
I let them cool and began to prepare the icings. Whitelily called for 1-1.5 tablespoons of water to be added to the icing mix while Krusteaz called for 1.5-2 tablespoons of water to be added to the icing mix. Thinking this may provide a different consistency, I poured out the icing mixes and found Krusteaz had more icing powder in the package explaining the need for more water. The Whitelily icing was very tart and lemony and reminded me very much of a lemon flavored PEZ candy. The Krusteaz was more sweet than tart but was also strongly lemon flavored, but less overwhelming. I coated the cooled cakes in icing and let it set.
Since these two loafs were so similar looking, it truly came down to taste. Without the icing, Krusteaz had a better lemon flavor however Whitelily was more moist. With the icing, the tart lemon flavor of the Whitelily really pulled it to the top. The tart lemon icing paired with the sweet moist loaf was fantastic. I shared with my family and asked them all their thoughts and it was unanimous that the Whitelily lemon loaf was the winner. Don’t get me wrong, the Krusteaz loaf is good on it’s own and is worth buying again but side by side it is clear that Whitelily is the better box mix. I really enjoyed both of these mixes and the pricing was so similar, you can’t go wrong buying either of these for your next lemon loaf craving.
As prepared the Whitelily mix was a total of 2370 calories. I sliced it into 10 pieces bringing each slice to 237 calories. Krusteaz was a tiny bit higher totaling 2470 calories for the mixture and each slice being 247 calories.
Here are the links to products used today:
Oven Mitts – https://amzn.to/3JYq5Mg
Plastic Measuring Cup – https://amzn.to/4bDJIoV
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