dessert

Dazzling Duncan Hines Red Velvet Pancakes

- Mama 8 Comments

When I was in elementary school, once each year, near Christmas time, we would get a single slice of Red Velvet cake as a part of our lunchtime meal. The tradition dated back even before my mother was in school, and it was one of my favorite lunchtime treats of the year from our cafeteria.

You see, there’s nothing about Red Velvet cake that I don’t love. It’s chocolatey, which, duh, is amazing. And it’s a bright, rich, red color, which is always a little more interesting than boring brown chocolate. And then, of course, there’s the delightful cream cheese frosting that just really compliments the chocolate flavor.

Fast-forward to the present. When I was at the Duncan Hines test kitchen in Parsippany, I was blessed enough to get a sneak preview at products coming soon from Duncan Hines, provided that I kept my pretty little mouth shut until the big reveal from Duncan Hines. It has been killing me not to tell my blog readers about it because I know you guys will love it, but today, Duncan Hines finally made the big product announcement about one of the absolutely delicious items that I got to taste! Below, you’ll see their big reveal!

This red velvet cupcake mix is special for many reasons. First off, the frosting mix is right in the box, so you can bake your cupcakes and whip up the frosting mix, and only have to buy one package. I love that– it’s so convenient. Plus, I’m one of those people who buys a mix and says “Oh, yeah, I totally have the frosting for this at home,” and then I get home and surprise! No frosting. This is incredibly handy because it’s all-in-one, basically. Plus, it comes with a pastry bag! That means you can fill and frost your cupcakes so easily.

While we were in the test kitchen, Chef Joe showed us how to fill them easily. You just stick the bag into the center of the cupcake, about halfway down. You apply pressure as you pull the bag up out of the cupcake, and swoosh it around to frost, all in one motion! Easy-peasy and it looks incredibly professional!

Each of the Duncan Hines winners received a box of the brand-new Red Velvet mix as part of our winning weekend prize package, so we were the first to try it before it hits stores.

When I got the box, I first considered making the cupcakes following the instructions on the box. Then, I thought about how I had already tasted that at the test kitchen. I considered making the brownie recipe found on the side of the box, but then I really got to thinking.

Duncan Hines chose me as a winner because I’m innovative. My recipe was something new and exciting using a fairly basic ingredient. And this, you see, it was no different. There are many, many great ways to enjoy this boxed mix (one of my favorite people from the winning weekend had a great recipe to turn it into ice cream! Um, yes, please!), and I thought it would be nice to shake things up.

I started thinking about my favorite red velvet creations. My mind wandered towards cakes and the ice cream fellow winner Sandra came up with, and landed on IHOP’s Red Velvet Pancakes.

If you haven’t tried them yet, I think you should honestly stop reading this post for a second and drive to your nearest IHOP. It’s open 24 hours a day. If you live in America, you really have no excuse not to taste them, seriously. Or, you could just keep reading because…

…I totally have the best Red Velvet Pancake recipe here, like… ever. I promise. It’s IHOP’s pancakes on steroids. These are light and fluffy and drizzled with delicious cream cheese glaze and the best part is, it’s from a BOX. Because, you know, I use Duncan Hines religiously and if you can make pancakes from a boxed cake mix, why the heck wouldn’t you?

Start by making the glaze first. You want to soften a stick of butter and then whip it up using an electric mixer. Once it’s whipped, slowly add in the powdered cream cheese frosting mix from the Duncan Hines Decadent Red Velvet Cupcake box while continuing to mix on low.

Can you see my awesome vintage Hamilton Beach stand mixer? I recently inherited it- it belonged to one of my great aunts who enjoyed baking probably as much as I do. I am in love with this thing.

Anyway, you’ll notice it’s still pretty powdery when you just have the butter added. Instead of doing what the box mix instructions say, you’re not going to add just the four teaspoons of water… that would give you a thicker frosting for cupcakes. Instead, you’re wanting a glaze, so you’re going to slowly add in two TABLESPOONS of water. It’ll give you a much thinner glaze.

This top photo shows you a little more of a thicker glaze, with just the one added tablespoon. The picture below shows how it gets much thinner with the second added tablespoon. See how that is more “drizzle-on-pancakes-worthy”?

Now, set your glaze aside and get to work on those yummy pancakes! You’re going to take a bowl and dump in the cake mix that came in the Duncan Hines Decadent Red Velvet Cupcake box. Add between 1 and 1 1/2 cups of flour (I could be really specific here and say 1 1/4 cup, but really, it’s personal preference on whether you prefer thinner cakes or thicker ones), a tablespoon of sugar, 3/4 teaspoons of baking powder, a little salt, 2 eggs, a little vanilla (a teaspoon is plenty!), and 2 cups of cold milk. Whisk those puppies up and get all of the lumps out.

Grease your pan or griddle really well, warm it up to around 300 degrees (you’ll know it’s done if you drip a little dab of water on and it sizzles up), and then pour some batter on. I make BIG pancakes, around two heaping spoonfuls of batter, but you can easily make whatever size you want, obviously. My son and brother are big fans of silver dollar pancakes.

From here on out, it’s pretty much like your standard pancaking… you’ll want to wait until bubbles appear, flip it, and then wait a bit and take it off of the pan. Seriously, it’s not rocket surgery or brain science, just pancakes. I’ve always been intimidated by making pancakes, and when I finally made them, boom! It’s actually easy. I swear. If it weren’t, I wouldn’t make them (I’m writing this with the hope that there is some poor soul out there, like me, who hasn’t yet attempted to make pancakes and just needs that extra little nudge).

Aaaaanndddd…. FLIP!

So, I’m not exactly the best flipper in the world, but I promise you, they taste yummy. In the end, you’ll get a towering stack of delightful rich red pancakes with an intensely perfect chocolate flavor. The stack is actually a little taller than this, but a few of the hotcakes had already been stolen by little pancake thieves… I got around 15 pancakes from it.

Now, grab a couple of those and drizzle (or drown!) them with cream cheese glaze! I liked mine with just a tiny drizzle, as shown in the picture, but my family loved pouring the cream cheese frosting over them until they were more white velvet than red. Either way, these are a true hit, even with the youngest eaters (my son devoured one, minus the glaze!)

Seriously, look at how thick and fluffy those puppies are! They’re huge!

And all of this just goes to show you, once again, that with Duncan Hines, there really aren’t any limits to your creativity. You may be using a box of cake mix, but that doesn’t mean you have to limit yourself to that box. Stretch yourself, be creative, and you will absolutely love what comes out of it. I’m going to be honest… I can’t remember the last time I used a boxed cake mix to actually make a cake.

Duncan Hines will be releasing the new Decadent Red Velvet Cupcakes, complete with frosting mix and pastry bags, in stores now!

Do you love Duncan Hines Decadent Mixes? Try my great Rustic Carrot Cake Cookies featuring the Decadent Carrot Cake Mix, or these Pumpkin Spice Truffles using the Pumpkin Spice Decadent Cupcake Mix! Hungry? You can view all of my recipes in the Food section of DigitalEraMom.com!

Disclaimer: As a Duncan Hines Frosting Creations winner, I was given a box of this mix to try for free. All opinions of those are from my family and myself, not from Duncan Hines or Pinnacle Foods.

Happy Birthday, Grandma! (With German Chocolate Filled Cupcake recipe)

- Mama 4 Comments

Today is my grandmother’s birthday! I’m so blessed to be visiting her today to celebrate with her! Growing up, my grandmother was a huge fixture in my life. I have many memories of spending time with her when I was younger.

Grandma holding me the day I was born. 

At one point when I was younger, I would spend the night at my grandparents’ house every Friday. Sometimes, my mother would drop me off at grandma’s workplace at the time. I would sit in her office and file paperwork, or at least, pretend I was. After grandma would get off of work, we’d go home and spend time together. I had two nightgowns at my grandmother’s house… one was brown flannel, and one was satin and pink. Each Saturday morning, we would clean up the house, just the basic tasks like washing windows and dusting. I would wear my brown flannel gown and pretend to be Cinderella, and then when the cleaning was finished, I’d change into the pink gown because, to me, it looked more like a ball gown or pretty gown, and it meant my Cinderella transformation was complete.

Visiting Grandma one day.

Grandma and I would also often play restaurant. She would get a notepad of paper and pen, and write down my “order” for breakfast. As I grew up, when my grandmother moved to an apartment, much closer to our favorite bookstore, it was not unusual for me to spend a weekend with her, and wake up in the morning, head to the bookstore when it opened at 10, sit around reading and drinking coffee drinks, and stay there until 10 at night when they would close up and ask us to leave. At the bookstore, I would often get a huge stack of books and read a chapter of each, pruning it down from about 20 to 5 or 6. It was nothing for us to spend a full day there, and as I ran around the store reading chapters of various books to decide which ones I wanted, she would instead sit there with one book, typically a Sue Grafton novel, and read the entire thing.

In addition to helping foster my love of reading by taking me to bookstores for long hours (Borders was our favorite, and we were both so sad to see it go), my grandmother also inspired a great love for theatre by taking me to many, many theatre productions. I can’t even count the number of productions of West Side Story I’ve seen anymore.

On the way to a theatre production.

One of my favorite anecdotes about my grandmother is the time we went on a cruise when I was younger. My parents shared one cabin, and my grandmother and I shared the other. Our cabin had a window, and one day when we were docking in the Bahamas, we woke early to watch out our window. Because the cruise had free room service, we ordered breakfast, and sat and ate breakfast as we watched our boat come into port. After enjoying our breakfast by the window, we started to get tired, and decided to go back to bed for a few hours. We woke up, we ordered breakfast like we did every morning, and halfway through, we realized that we were eating breakfast for the second time. On many occasions, we have thought back on that day fondly, talking about the day we ate breakfast twice.

A couple of years ago, we had the good fortune to travel on a bus tour to New York City. It was my second visit to the city, but her first. It was incredible traveling with her, my aunt Carol, and Uncle Freeman. We were able to explore the city and really have a lot of fun seeing everything New York City had to offer. Our hotel was within walking distance of both Central Park and Times Square. It was about five blocks from Times Square, and five in the opposite direction to Central Park. It was just incredible to get to see the city, and the travel there was a lot of fun. I took so many photographs on that trip!

On the bus to New York City.

My grandmother was the fifth child born into her family of all girls. She had four older sisters, Faye, Carol, Glenda, and Carlene, with her being the fifth. Each time, her parents came up with a name for a male child, and each time, it was a female and they had to adjust it. Faye was Norma Faye, her male counterpart name being Norman. Carol Dean, naturally, was supposed to be a Dean had she been a boy. Glenda Maye was a Glen. Carlene’s male counterpart name was Carl, and Myria Francis, well, was to be Francis. They grew up in a small town in Missouri, called Seymour.

Clockwise from top left: Carol, Glenda, Carlene, my Grandmother Myria, Faye

Recently, I began interviewing my grandparents about their lives and their childhoods, curating stories to document for the future. I got to hear some incredible stories about my grandmother’s childhood, and I want to share them with you, in her own words.

My grandmother, seated on her mother’s lap, with her parents and sisters.

Faye once made me get a spanking, but it wasn’t my fault. Mother had gone in to take a nap, and told Faye to watch us, since she was the oldest. So, with the mean old sisters I had, I asked if I could go down to Grandma Davis’ house, since she lived just over a block away. Faye said I could go, so I did. When mother woke up, she asked where I had gone, and Faye said “I don’t know. She was here, and then she just left. She didn’t say anything to me. She just left.” So, other came looking for me, and found me at Grandma Davis’ and spanked me all the way home.

I must take this point to share that, many times, Grandma mentions having “mean old sisters.” Grandma and her sisters are incredibly close. Faye passed away as a result of complications from ALS, and Carlene passed away of cancer. Both of those losses still weigh very heavily on our family’s hearts, and especially my grandmother’s. But her sisters, oh, her sisters. She loves them more than anything, and so when she says things like that, it’s always very tongue-in-cheek.

Grandma also told me a story once about her walk to school, which provides some insight into those “Uphill Both Ways” tales.

I always walked to school. All of us girls did, and we had to cross the railroad track. There was even an incline up to the railroad track. When we were growing up and would have to cross that, it seemed like it was so high. When it was icy, it would be impossible to get up the incline! Then, 20 to 30 years later, we went back there, to walk up the incline, and it was barely an incline at all.

My grandmother, the entire time I’ve known her, has had some very precocious qualities to her. The story below, I think, really features that in her.

I skipped school one time, I was in grade school. Well, it was before we moved to Springfield, so I guess it was grade school. I was so smart, that when I skipped school, where do you think I went? To my granma and granddad Sims, which was across town. I don’t know how they did it, because they didn’t have a phone, but soon, Daddy showed up at their house. The principal had a paddle that was about two feet long, and had little holes drilled into it, so when I came back to school the next day, I was called into the principal’s office. What was really bad about that is the principal and his wife were close friends with my parents and would come over to my parents’ house. When I got called into the office, he handed me a pen, because whenever you were paddled at school, you had to write your name on the paddle. I knew, just knew, I was going to get paddled. I wrote my name on it, and he said “This is just a warning. Don’t do it again.” So, luckily I didn’t get a spanking. But, yeah, I just had to go to my grandparents’ house when I was skipping school, didn’t I.

My grandmother, a precocious little girl.

I’ll leave you with just one more anecdote about her today. I also got the opportunity to hear a little bit about each of my grandmother’s parents, so she could tell me some special things she remembered about them.

My dad was a very smart, learned, educated man. Not formally educated, but self-educated, especially on the Bible. He was a very kind man, loved music. He sang bass in several different quartets and performed and sang solos in church. He was a very good singer. He loved his family very much and always made sure he provided for them. He worked for a milk company, worked several years for Carnation, then Cloverleaf for a little while, and retired working at Highland. He taught five daughters how to drive. He raised his five daughters to fear God and have a personal relationship with Him. My mother was very quiet, a very quiet person. She had a fantastic sense of humor. She loved life, loved her family, and just enjoyed life, truly enjoyed it. She was a great cook. I probably resemble my mother the most, except I’m not nearly the cook that she was. But I’m probably most like my mother.

My grandmother’s “mother and daddy.”

My grandmother is a huge part of my life, and someone I love quite a bit. She truly is a wonderful person and a great influence on my life. It’s harder now that she has moved three hours away, because I grew up spending a lot of time with her when I was younger, but she and I still enjoy spending time together and I love the great memories I’ve had with her.

Here are a few other fun photographs I was able to find of my grandmother.

(I’m always making fun of her curtains in the image above).

Happy birthday to you, Grandma! I cannot thank you enough for the support and love that you’ve given me through the years. I appreciate your comments on my blog and all of the support you’ve given me with my blogging and my goals for the future. I love you, Grandma!

For my grandmother’s birthday, I decided to make some very special cupcakes. My grandmother loves German Chocolate Cake. Fun fact, it’s actually not from Germany, but instead is named after Sam German, the man who created the chocolate that was once used in the recipe. I decided to do a pseudo-German chocolate filled cake. My cake recipe is modified off of one from Hershey’s website. It’s based off of their recipe to their “Perfectly Chocolate” cake.

The recipe kind of sounded a little odd to me, but it is truly a very soft, moist, and incredibly chocolate cake. Bear with me, as odd as the recipe sounds, it produces one of the best sets of cupcakes I’ve ever made.

2 Cups Sugar
1 ¾ Cups All-purpose flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2/3 Cup cocoa powder
1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
1 small box instant chocolate pudding
1 Cup milk
2 eggs
½ cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 C boiling water

Start by heating your oven to 350 degrees F. Fill your cupcake tin with liners, or grease it. I prefer using liners because it’s easier for batter to crawl up the paper than it is for it to cling to a metal pan, so cupcakes baked with a liner rise higher.

Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, pudding, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. Add your eggs, milk, oil, and vanilla, then beat for a couple of minutes. Stir in the vinegar quickly to activate the baking soda. Now pour in your boiling water. It will make for a very thin batter. At first, it kind of made me nervous how thin it was, but it ended up making some great cupcakes, so don’t get too worried about it! Plus, the batter smells incredible after you pour that water in!

Fill your cups between 2/3 and ¾ of the way full with the batter. Bake them for 25 minutes, and cool completely.

For the filling, I decided to use a modified version of the Coconut Pecan Frosting from Back To Her Roots. Her frosting recipe tasted delicious, but it was sort of soupy, which is why I provided for the modification below. However, if her recipe comes out perfectly for you, you may not end up having to use my modified technique and may be able to use the frosting perfectly like she did. Her recipe was positively incredible, though, even soupy, which is why I decided to use it instead of switching to a different recipe.

3 Egg Yolks
1 Cup packed brown sugar
12 tablespoons butter (1 ½ sticks), cut into pats
1 (12 oz) can Evaporated milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
Pinch of Salt
1 ½ cups pecans, chopped
2 cups toasted flake coconut (I used sweetened, but her recipe calls for unsweetened. I would say it’s up to your personal preference).

Combine your yolks, evaporated milk, butter, and brown sugar in your medium saucepan, keeping the heat low. Cook and stir constantly until the butter is melted, and all ingredients combine completely. Remove from heat.

Stir in your vanilla and salt, and then add coconut and pecans. Stir until it’s well-combined. Transfer this to a bowl and refrigerate until it’s cool throughout. Make sure you allow for a lot of time for this to stay in the refrigerator. I refrigerated mine for 10 hours. If you can get it to go overnight, that would be best.

If, after refrigerating it for a very long time, it’s still soupy, grab a strainer and strain off all of the excess liquid. I’m going to tell you right now, you should save it, because the liquid is incredible for coffee, ice cream, everything. It is a truly delicious liquid.

To fill the cupcakes, you need to grab a sharp knife, cut into the cupcake at an angle (about 45 degree angle) and cut a cone shape out of the middle of the cupcake. If you cut it too deep, you might puncture the bottom of the cupcake, and that would be bad news, so make sure you’re careful to cut into the cupcake deep enough to give you a lot of filling, but not so deep that there’s no cupcake to go with it.

Once you’ve got the cone out of the cupcake, fill ‘er up with that delicious coconut pecan filling.

Grab the part of the cupcake you cut out, and cut the cone shape off so you’re left with a flat piece. Put that on top of the filling, and viola, you’re back to an easy-to-frost surface.

Back to her roots also has an incredible ganache recipe on her website that you could choose to frost your cupcakes with. I tried to make it, twice, and it was pure liquid, even after letting it stay in the fridge for about 7 hours (her recipe suggests two). If you can get the ganache to work (and I’m sure it does… I’m just ganache-challenged). Worst-case scenario, if her ganache doesn’t work, then you can put about 5 spoonfuls into a cup, and add your coffee… instant mocha!

Because the ganache didn’t work, I have a confession… I used some store-bought icing to use on the top. I grabbed my star tip, my decorating bag (it’s fancy. I take a quart-sized Ziploc, cut a corner off, nest my star tip in it, and spoon the frosting in), and my favorite Duncan Hines chocolate icing. I’m pretty brand-loyal when it comes to store-bought frostings, and Duncan Hines is where it’s at. I whipped up the icing so it would be nice and fluffy, and I piped it onto my cupcakes. Then, I took it that extra step and sprinkled each cupcake with a little touch of coconut (the coconut also helped so I could tell the filled and un-filled cupcakes apart… my little brother isn’t a fan of coconut and pecans, so I left several cupcakes unfilled for him).

And that, my friends, is my perfect kind-of German chocolate filled cupcakes. I hope some of you will be able to use this recipe in order to make a birthday special for someone as special to me as my grandmother!

Give Me S’more Bars

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S’mores are probably one of the most special desserts I know of. After all, you have to make sure you have fire, and you need an occasion- maybe a bonfire, or a fire pit… well, that is, until these bars came along. They are so easy to make that it may mean s’mores on a very regular basis. As in every week. Or maybe two days in a row.

Or maybe every day in a row.

Once again, this recipe will be featuring Duncan Hines Frosting Creations… this time, I will be using half a can of Frosting Creations Frosting Starter with a full packet of Chocolate Marshmallow Flavor Mix. The Chocolate Marshmallow was just begging for a S’more-style dessert, so I whipped one up.

This is super easy. You’re going to start by melting 3 tablespoons of butter and an entire bag of jumbo marshmallows in a saucepan on the stove.

Once they’ve melted fully and it’s a liquid, go ahead and remove from heat, then pour in 8 cups of graham cracker cereal. I used Golden Grahams. Once you’ve done that, pull out some mini semi-sweet chocolate chips, and some hot chocolate marshmallows. (I freeze mine until right before this step, so they melt a little less). Stir them in quickly, then put your mixture into a greased 9×13 pan. Sprinkle  these with another tablespoon of mini chocolate chips and another tablespoon of hot chocolate marshmallows (psssst… you can buy hot chocolate marshmallows on their own- Kraft’s Jet-Puffed Mallow Bits in Vanilla are PERFECT for this recipe!).

Now, put the whole pan in the fridge for 30 minutes, at least.

During this time, you’ll want to grab your Duncan Hines Frosting Creations Frosting Starter and Chocolate Marshmallow Flavor Mix. Scoop out half of the can into a bowl, and mix the entire packet of Chocolate Marshmallow Flavor Mix into it. I decided to use a half of a jar instead of a full jar, but still do the entire packet of mix, because a recipe like this doesn’t call for a large amount of frosting, but it does need frosting that packs a punch in flavor. Part of what I love about the Duncan Hines Frosting Creations is that it is so easy to customize. The full packet adds the concentration and punch it needed, without being overpowering.

Once you remove it from the fridge, glob the frosting on, and kind of spread it around a bit. Then, cut it into bars and serve. There you go- s’mores anytime!

Looks good, yeah?

Fresh Strawberry Pie with Strawberry Shortcake Whipped Topping

- Mama 1 Comment

If you guys aren’t sick of my recipes yet, here is a third recipe featuring Duncan Hines Frosting Creations. In case you missed my first two recipes, I just want to recap what Duncan Hines Frosting Creations are. You essentially purchase a Frosting Starter, which looks like your average container of Duncan Hines frosting, but it’s got a twist. You also buy the flavor of your choice- you have twelve to choose from, from bubblegum to chocolate almond all the way to… Strawberry Shortcake, which I’ll be featuring today.

Now, if you want the full experience with the Duncan Hines frosting, you’ll want to check out my other two recipes (Coconut Amaretto Layered Brownies and Caramel Apple Sticky Buns), because this time, I’ve used the product a little bit differently.

When Duncan Hines sent me a Strawberry Shortcake packet in my Very Important Baker box, I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to do with it at first. Using it to make a strawberry cake or some sort of strawberry-topped shortcake or icebox cake seemed very… well, obvious, to me. I wanted to experiment with the mix in a unique new way.

That’s why, for this recipe, I did the taboo thing and opted to not use the frosting starter, but only stick with using the packet of frosting creations flavor mix.

I started my recipe by using a refrigerated pie crust (I used Pillsbury because I love love love their crusts- nice and flaky!) but you can use a homemade crust as well, if you’d like. I just didn’t have the time this morning. I unrolled the pie crust and pricked it with a fork, per the package directions.

Then I brushed it with a tablespoon of melted butter, and sprinkled it with a tablespoon of sugar and a teaspoon of cinnamon. It’s a trick that has been in our family longer than my great grandmother, and it’s a secret that is pretty much always a part of pies in my family.

I baked the pie crust per the package instructions. While I was baking the crust, I washed 3 pounds of strawberries, then cut the stems off and cut them in half. I took one cup of those strawberries and set them aside.

As it was cooling, I decided to start on my whipped topping, so it would have time to really let the flavors mesh. This is where I got creative with my Duncan Hines Frosting Creations. I took a package of Cool Whip Extra Creamy, and my packet of Duncan Hines Frosting Creations Flavor Mix in Strawberry Shortcake.

I mixed the two together thoroughly (I found that putting it in a bowl was easier than leaving it in the container), then put them back in the bowl. Don’t overmix, or you’ll make your Cool Whip all liquidy. When I finished, this package went back in the fridge.

(the lighting in my kitchen is AWFUL!)

It was time to start my glaze. Do you remember that one cup of strawberries that I set aside? I took those, put them in the bowl (I used the same bowl I used to mix my Cool Whip, which I hope gave it a little extra boost), and crushed them to smithereens with a potato masher. There were a few large chunks left, which is fine. I like to consider my glaze a “rustic” glaze- I don’t worry about getting all of the chunks super smooth- it really won’t matter later. I poured the crushed strawberries and a half cup of sugar into a saucepan on medium heat.

I took a measuring cup with 3/4 cup cold water and added 1 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch. I mixed those until the cornstarch was completely dissolved, then stirred it into my mixture on the stove. I also added my secret ingredient- a teaspoon of cinnamon. I stirred that occasionally as I brought it to a boil, continuing to stir until the glazy bits turned clear. Then, I removed it from the stove and poured it back into the mashed strawberry bowl to let it cool.

Once that had cooled, I mixed the remaining strawberries and the glaze together. I poured this into my baked pie crust.

I put the entire thing into the fridge, and left it there while I went to my Uncle’s wedding reception (P.S. I have a new aunt! Isn’t that the coolest? Congratulations to them!) When I returned home, I topped it with my Strawberry Shortcake Whipped Topping that I had made- it was a lovely light pink and had a great strawberry aroma and flavor.

I finally finished my pie by topping each slice with a fresh strawberry, stem intact, before serving cold.

It was incredible, and I loved finding a new, out-of-the-box use for the Duncan Hines Frosting Creations flavor mix. It truly is a great spring treat, and would be perfect for a Mother’s Day treat, served at a Memorial Day or Easter lunch, or, because my mom’s favorite thing for her birthday is strawberry pie, would be great for a birthday celebration! It’s elegant, and oh-so-easy. The strawberry pie was a hit with my taste testers, and several of them said that they liked it better than my previous two recipes- I thought the others would be hard to top!

DISCLAIMER: I received the packet of Strawberry Shortcake Flavor Mix from Duncan Hines. All opinions and recipes, however, are my own.