Have you noticed that pistachio has stormed in and taken over everywhere? It used to be if you wanted pistachio flavor you had to get pudding mix or ice cream and that was if you were lucky. Suddenly it is everywhere, pistachio coffee, pistachio chocolate, pistachio cake mix. I’m really interested to see if this is a good product or a quick, mass produced product to hop onto the current pistachio trend because let’s be honest, we’ve seen this a lot lately.
Let’s start with the positives. This is as easy and simple as any other cake mix. Combine the powdered mix from the box with oil, water, and eggs. It comes together quick and easy and it’s ready to be poured into sprayed pans. I went for 8inch rounds but the box gives you bake times for any size pan you might use.
Now the negatives. There is no pistachio in this cake mixes ingredients. The only thing that could possibly be something is “natural flavors” however I own a powdered pistachio flavoring that is meant to be added into baked goods, such as cake, and the second ingredient inside that product is ground pistachios. To say I’m disappointed is an understatement. On top of the missing pistachio, this mix also contains Red 40. No matter what your stand is on this controversial ingredient, you have to admit that it feels extremely unnecessary inside this green cake mix.
The batter smells and tastes odd, like if you think about pistachio flavor you once had as a kid and now tried to recreate it without consulting actual pistachio flavors. It is also an unnecessarily artificial shade of green. Regardless, I put the pans into the oven to bake. The box calls for 30-35 minutes for baking two 8inch rounds but you should know by now you cannot trust the big name companies like Pillsbury to give you an accurate bake time. At 25 minutes this cake was baked.
Despite the packaging showing this cake made with a white frosting, I picked up the partner product which is a whipped pistachio flavored frosting which is once again, unnaturally green and has no actual pistachios inside. Once the cake layers cooled off I cut each one flat and placed half the frosting between the layers and the other half on top. One tub of frosting won’t cover the entire cake but it gets the point across and gives your cake the essence of frosting.
Frosting this cake was an awful experience. I am a professional cake decorator and it is how I spend most of my baking time. However, boxed cake mix and tub frosting is setting you up to fail no matter your experience level. Cake mixes are designed to be so moist that they fall apart the second you touch them and the frosting is so stiff (even the ones that claim to be “whipped”) that it rips the cake apart when you try to spread it around. I had the worst time trying to get this cake to look decent. At this point, I’m hoping it tastes good because it doesn’t look good, especially with the full green look.
I cut a slice of cake and it immediately fell apart. The flavor of the cake itself was mild and a little disappointing. I don’t think I would know this was pistachio if you didn’t tell me, but I would notice something was off about it. The frosting carries a stronger pistachio flavor and when combined with the cake, you can definitely tell it is pistachio. Since this review is just for the cake mix, I have to tell you to move past this trend and ignore this box mix on the shelves near you. This was a complete letdown. If you really want pistachio cake, you have a couple better options. You can buy the pistachio flavor powder to add into any cake or cake mix yourself, you can buy pistachio pudding mix to add into your cake mix (a very popular trend to get a more moist cake), or you can make a vanilla cake and use pistachio pudding as the filling. I only spent $1.46 on the cake mix and $1.86 on the frosting and it was still too much for this sad product. This is a money grab, not a product made with love.
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