Jakks Pacific Girl Gourmet Cupcake Maker

by Jakks Pacific

Product Features

• Make super yummy cupcakes with the brand new girl gourmet cupcake maker
• Make the perfect cupcake icing swirl with cupcake maker
• Decorate your cupcakes with favorite frostings and sprinkles
• Make and decorate 4 cupcakes
• Chocolate, vanilla, red velvet and cinnamon sugar

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 13 x 12.5 inches ; 3.2 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B0017HGGDU
• Item model number: 38570
• Manufacturer recommended age: 8 years and up
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #41,418 in Toys & Games (See Top 100 in Toys & Games)
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (186 customer reviews)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Review

With the Girl Gourmet Cupcake Maker, kids get a fun, easy, no-hassle introduction to baking. This educational and creative toy not only teaches the very basics of cooking--such as measuring and mixing--but its cupcake decorating accessories encourage kids to experiment with their own personal touches. If you have a microwave oven and an adult handy to supervise the fun, kids ages 8 and up can get started baking and decorating in no time.

The Girl Gourmet Cupcake Make provides kids with a fun, easy, no-hassle introduction to baking. View larger.

What We Think Fun Factor: Durability: (what this means) The Good: Easy-to-use cupcake mixes bake in seconds; easy-to-follow directions make for easy mixing, baking, and decorating; cupcake mixes are gluten free. The Bad: Cupcake froster turns out less-than-perfect results; cupcakes' taste aren't quite "mom's home-made" quality. In a Nutshell: Cupcake baking and decorating kids provides a fun, simple, quickly executed introduction to baking; inspires and encourages creativity. At a Glance Ages: 8 and up Requires: Microwave oven; adult supervision

Getting Started
The Cupcake Maker comes with four special cupcake mixes and frosting that are custom designed for use with this toy. The cake flavors include red velvet, chocolate, yellow, and cinnamon sugar; the frostings are chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, and cream cheese flavored. These easy-to-use mixes, which contain no wheat ingredients--a definite plus for the gluten-free crowd--and require only water as an added ingredient. (Allergy alert: the mix does contain powdered eggs and powdered milk.)

The toy comes with everything your child needs to mix, bake, and decorate the cupcakes: a tiny mixing bowl, measuring spoon, water dropper, and miniature spatula for mixing the batter and frosting; a microwaveable container for baking the cupcakes; and a cupcake frosting gadget with a shape reminiscent of a KitchenAid standing mixer. And everything your little chef needs to get started is packaged in chic, girl-pleasing, contemporary pastels.

Mix It Up
Simply mix the cake mix with water using the provided measuring spoons and water dropper to reach the desired consistency (we found that a pudding-like consistency gives the best results), pour the batter into the cupcake paper, and put it in the plastic "baking dish," bake it in the microwave for about 30 seconds, and--voila!--out comes a completely baked cupcake. Because the cupcakes get pretty hot, an adult should handle them until they're cool enough to handle.

In the meantime, the frosting can be mixed up in the same manner. Again, it took us a few tries to get the proper consistency: it's especially important for the frosting to be, as suggested, the consistency of firm cookie dough to work properly with the cupcake froster.

Time to Decorate
The cupcake froster comes with a frosting tube with a plunger and decorator-type tip. Scoop the frosting into the tube with the miniature spatula and place it in the machine. (This step can prove almost impossible if the frosting is too runny.) Place the cooled cupcake below and push down the lever. The frosting machine simultaneously spins the cupcake and pushes out the frosting to create a spiral shape. Kids can put the finishing touches on with the included sprinkles or, as the "shortcut" cards suggest, with cut-up fruit or candy (you'll want to stock up on these beforehand). The finished cupcake is smaller than a regular cupcake and a bit larger than your standard mini cupcake.

The Taste Test
The quick-and-easy baking and frosting mixes make for a fun and simple introduction to baking, especially for kids who haven't already started growing their "kitchen legs." Kid-sized cooking utensils makes it fun for kids to use, and are much easier to use than Mom and Dad's larger and heavier utensils.

The cupcakes themselves cook quickly in the microwave, making for a fast turnaround that won't try younger kids' patience; but they also, to be honest, don't quite have the taste as the home-made cup cakes that mom or grandma makes. But admittedly, this opinion is formed by an adult palate. For the kids that cook the cupcakes, they will be flavored with the sweetness of do-it-yourself pride.

Adults will need to make sure, however, that the kids don't start out with aspirations to the Martha Stewart-like decorating job pictured on the box: after multiple tests, we found that the cupcake froster simply does not turn out perfectly dainty frosting spirals. This might prove disappointing, so kids should be prepared to expect more realistic, charmingly handmade results. And your kids will be sure to have a lot more fun and confidence with their own creative decorating jobs.

Add water to cake mix with the provided spoons and water dropper.

Pour the batter in the dish, microwave, and--voila!--a cupcake!

Place the cooled cupcake below and start frosting.

Keep it coming ... you can never have too much frosting!

Cover the cupcake with sprinkles and its ready to eat!

What's In the Box
Cupcake Froster, 4 cupcake mixes; 4 frosting mixes; two-sided measuring spoon; spatula; water dropper; mixing bowl; 4 cupcake papers; 4 "shortcut" cards; microwave baker; cupcake cup; sprinkles and sprinkle container.

Product Description

Gourmet girls can create their own trendy cakes with this bakes-in-30-seconds maker. The set comes with everything you'll need to whip up four batches of cupcakes. Includes: cupcake maker, froster, microwave container with cupcake holder, four mixes, four frostings, four cupcake cups, sprinkles, bowl, measuring spoon, spatula, recipe cards and instruction sheet.

Allergy Warning: Contains milk, egg and soy Ingredients. Mixes are processed in a facility that also processes wheat ingredients.

See all Product Description

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

97 of 99 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars What's that smell??, October 26, 2008

By 

Sofia Hernandez "Maddy, Eli & Joshy's Mom" (Woodside, NY) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

= Durability:4.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:4.0 out of 5 stars 

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Jakks Pacific Girl Gourmet Cupcake Maker (Toy)

So my nephews and nieces came over and my daughter decides that she wants to open her birthday present and "bake". We agree, because it only needed a microwave and some water to make "supposedly" tasty cupcakes. Easy right?? Not really...

And it begins... luckily we didn't have to assemble which was a blessing. We grab the little mixing bowl and pour in the little powdery mix. ON a side note, a big annoyance is the fact that the set starts you off with 4 cupcakes only. One in each flavor: Vanilla, Chocolate, Red Velvet and Cinnamon. So luckily, the big kids that could participate were only 4 so there wasn't any arguing. The down side once again... only one bowl and mixing spoon/spatula. We pour in the 2 tablespoons of water, daughter mixes and we pop it into the microwave with its appropriate container. Twenty-five seconds later; VIOLA! It is indeed a cupcake, but a spongy-holey looking one. Within a minute, my honest reaction was: "WHAT'S THAT SMELL?" I kept on asking if the dog had urinated somewhere. We discovered that the "glorious" smell was indeed the birthday girls Vanilla cupcake.

The next three children went, 2 tablespoons of water wasn't enough for some of the mixes. Chocolate after it was nuked smelled like poop. Cinnamon smelled like cinnamon batter and Red Velvet smelled like different poop. Nonetheless... the 4 cousins were excited to ice. The contraption/syringe that you have to stuff the icing into is just way too small. When you finally load it and the kids start pressing down, it just plops down icing at the same point for each revolution.

At the end of the day, it was fun for them, stinky for all of us and too darn messy. You are better off with supervised baking then this junky mix. Wonderful idea, but the flavoring needs to be tweaked majorly. The kids licked off the icing and then proclaimed they didn't want any more. TYPICAL!

107 of 110 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Save your money!, September 27, 2008

By 

Sad Baker - See all my reviews

= Durability:3.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:2.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:1.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Jakks Pacific Girl Gourmet Cupcake Maker (Toy)

I reluctantly purchased this for my daughter, and I am so sorry I did. It takes less time and mess to make cupcakes from a mix and let your daughter or son frost them with canned frosting. The contraption to twirl the frosting onto the cupcake makes it come out in a big glob and actually flung some right onto the floor. It wasn't pretty like on the commercial, and my daughter got so frustrated she was almost in tears. The cupcake is simply a microwave cupcake that looks disgusting. We haven't tasted it yet. The maker comes with only 4 mixes and 4 frostings, which means you can make a total of 4 cupcakes for $30. I've seen additional mixes for $12. If it was really fun and easy, I wouldn't be so harsh, but the whole thing was a huge disappointment.

46 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing mess, October 9, 2008

By 

Linda Majors "timlindam" (Portland, Oregon) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Durability:2.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:2.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:1.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Jakks Pacific Girl Gourmet Cupcake Maker (Toy)

Although this is a cute little cupcake maker, the cupcakes it produces are not (at least the frosted ones). The cupcakes cook quickly and quite well in the microwave, but the frosting part is a rediculous mess. The frosting is gritty and lumpy and is either too runny or comes out in globs. My daughter has enjoyed making them and says the cupcakes taste good though, so I guess it wasn't a total waste of money.