Trying out Betty Crocker’s Reese’s coffee cake mix

Betty Crocker partnered with Reese’s and made a few different baking mixes. We previously tried their peanut butter no bake bar mix and now we are diving into their coffee cake mix. This box describes this dessert as “Peanut butter cake mix with Reese’s peanut butter chips and brown sugar streusel topping”. This absolutely sounds delicious. I however had thought that coffee cake was specific to a cinnamon and streusel topped cake and didn’t realize it is actually any sweet bread and leaves a lot of room for interpretation. During my research I found that this seems to be more of a cultural thing as a lot of other countries define coffee cake as a coffee flavored cake with a coffee buttercream which is very different than the sweet bread we know and love to pair with a cup of coffee.

Betty Crocker’s box mix comes with two bags inside, one with the powdered cake mix, and one with the pre-made streusel topping. The ingredients needed are standard for all box mix cakes, oil, water, and eggs, nothing out of the ordinary. You mix these ingredients in with the powdered cake mix and combine it all into a batter. Then you pour this batter into an 8×8 pan. This batter didn’t have a very strong flavor, it was mostly sweet but the overwhelming flavor was the Reese’s peanut butter chips that were mixed in. If you’ve tasted them, you know they have a very distinct taste unlike anything else and I feel like this really ties this coffee cake mix back to Reese’s.

The streusel topping that is provided was clumped together into one big lump so I did have to break it up into smaller bits before sprinkling it over the cake batter. The amount provided seemed right, it covered the batter in the pan pretty evenly. This was mostly made of brown sugar and didn’t have any other flavor notes to it. The pan then goes into the oven to bake and the box claims it will be baked in the 8×8 size pan in 22-27 minutes. However, we all know better and it really only took 20 minutes until it was done. I pulled it out of the oven and it looked good, it had a nice rise and slightly browned edges.

Once cooled, I cut the pan into 16 pieces. The cake is drier than a regular cake mix, as it should be for a coffee cake, yet still exceptionally moist and fluffy. This was absolutely my definition of a coffee cake with the perfect addition of peanut butter notes in the cake and the peanut butter chips. It was such a good texture and flavor, it really was an enjoyable dessert on its own but it would pair beautifully with a cup of coffee as it’s name suggest. Better yet, a simple icing would absolutely elevate this dessert. You could make up a quick powdered sugar, milk, and vanilla icing and drizzle it over the top. I also want to note that the image on the box was pretty accurate, of course it was enhance slightly to exaggerate the chips and streusel but the texture, color, and height really matched up to my baked dessert. This is a really solid box mix and definitely worth making again. I picked it up for $4.33 on Amazon and included the link below in case you’d like to give it a try.

As prepared, this pan comes to a total of 2580 calories. If divided into 16 pieces as I did, each piece is 162 calories.

Here are the links to products used today:
Betty Crocker’s Reese’s Coffee Cake Mix – https://amzn.to/3yAUK0h
Rubber Spatulas – https://amzn.to/3JWDtAA
Oven Mitts – https://amzn.to/3JYq5Mg
8×8 baking pan – https://amzn.to/4dyO2Yb
Plastic Measuring Cup – https://amzn.to/4bDJIoV
*These are affiliate links meaning if you click on the link and buy the product, I will earn a small commission, but you will not be charged a penny more.