Has anyone else seen this floating around Pinterest?
Cake Batter Dip from Tasty Kitchen
So, in the vein of celebration of the Super Bowl, I decided to make this dip and bring it to our friends Matt and Caitlin’s house for their party. Dip is kind of a sport thing, right? And I’m well-known to be the Dessert Lady, so what can go wrong with making Funfetti Cake Dip?
In case you didn’t click through to the site, you take 1 package of cake mix, 12oz of yogurt and 2 cups of Cool Whip, mix it all together, and ‘fridge for an hour. What results is a strangely cake-y dip. EDIT: I ended up using fat-free yogurt and fat-free Cool Whip to make my version
One spoonful and I thought, “My god, it’s like someone created the Holy Grail of awesome dessert plasma IN MY MOUTH.” It’s like cold fusion. Alchemy. Higg’s Boson.
One more spoonful and I thought, “Oh, my god. I am going to vomit all over my shoes.” Cannot. Handle. How. Gross.
Forgive me while I get real snarky:
I remember all the way back three weeks ago when Paula Deen’s scandal broke. First of all, yes, she’s right when she defends herself and says she never told people to eat all of her gross food, and she never said SHE ate like that every day, and that no, butter-friend-butter should logically not seem like a good idea to anyone who ever passed 6th grade health class and has ever seen a food pyramid.
But.
How bad are us bloggers? Seriously, we worship Pioneer Woman, and she’s just the online Paula Deen. We contribute recipes like this monstrosity to Tasty Kitchen, which is a website she owns and profits off of. Half of the crap on that website– and her own cooking sub-page– is butter fried butter with red meat tossed in.
Guys. I know that I make crap from box brownie mixes and I have an entire segment of the site dedicated to sweet treats. I’m being a massive hypocrite for pointing this out. I want to say, “Yes, I’m bad BUT…” and fill it in with the fact that 1) I only feature one sweet treat a week or so, sometimes less and 2) I make no bones about the fact that I’ve been a vegetarian for close to 10 years and 3) Whatever else hooey I can scroung up in my brain but…
Bleh. I don’t want to be the poor lady’s Paula Deen/Pioneer Woman. I just want to find balance. And I want to NEVER eat Cake Batter Dip ever again ever in my life.
{ 26 comments… read them below or add one }
Was it that it tasted bad, or you couldn’t get past the “SO NOT GOOD FOR YOU” part? Couldn’t it be less deadly if you use fat-free yogurt and fat-free Cool Whip?
Anne recently posted..Being Sick
i actually should go back and edit to add that I did use fat free yogurt and fat-free cool whip. it just was a monumental sugar bomb.
Yeah, I can’t handle things that are such sugar overload. That’s the same reason I don’t like flourless chocolate cake, one bite is okay, but it’s just too rich for me.
That said, some sick part of me wants to make this now, just for that one bite.
Anne recently posted..Being Sick
When I was in middle school my best friend and I thought it would be AWESOME to put sprinkled and whipped cream on a can of cake frosting and eat it. The first bite was awesome. The next bite was sickening. To this day, I can’t handle a lot of cake frosting.
Jenn @ Monkey Butt Junction recently posted..Why I Want to Homeschool, and Why I Don’t Want to Homeschool
i’ve always been able to handle a LOT of sugar at once– especially when it comes to baked goods. but as soon as i turned 26 in December, i feel like my sweet tooth just disappeared. i can’t tell what it was that made me completely hate this– it just felt like i was eating vegetable shortening with sprinkles in it. and mostly, i kept thinking, “food like this should not exist.”
I’m with Anne. I haven’t made this Cake Batter Dip, so I can’t judge. I will admit that I’ve fixed some of PW’s stuff and just not liked it. I even reviewed one of her things (you won’t eat it because it has chicken in it) but it was WAY off the mark.
Stef at TooMuchToDoSoLittleTime.com recently posted..Homemade Vanilla After Seven Weeks
i’m totally a fan of unhealthy, there was just something about this that made me wonder. whatever prompted someone to make a spreadable dip of cake? why did the earth need that? and why did i feel compelled to try it?
I can’t stand it when something sweet also tastes like shortening or so much fat I want to puke. I had that with PW’s favorite sugar cookie recipe. Haven’t made them since.
Stef at TooMuchToDoSoLittleTime.com recently posted..Homemade Vanilla After Seven Weeks
i love a soft sugar cookie, but there has to be a vanilla essence, or some other flavor to it. *is* it baking if the end product just tastes like fat and sweet?
My stomach started to cramp as soon as you listed the ingredients. Of course, I have a deep seated dislike for Cool Whip, and anything called “fat free”, so I was bound to gross out. That being said, these sorts of things do appeal to our inner child, (SPRINKLES!) so it’s hard to resist trying them. We just don’t have a child’s cast iron stomach anymore with which to digest them.
Rachel recently posted..Color Trend – Bright Green Walls
i was really hoping this would just sort of be blander, maybe like a smooth dip with a hint of sugar and vanilla. it is not. at all. :-)
Oh dear. That sounds like a sugar coma just waiting to happen. Was it vanilla yogurt? Because vanilla yogurt always disagrees with me. It’s just *way* too sweet. But hey, cute idea!
I don’t blame bloggers or Paula Deen for throwing unhealthy recipes out there. I think, as always, it’s up to us consumers to be educated and choose wisely. It’s kind of like all those people who got upset when they realized Nutella wasn’t healthy, it was just . . . a sugary chocolate spread. Mmmm, ya think?! I think we *choose* to be lead astray from common sense sometimes.
Ada recently posted..The Freelance Writing Trenches: Getting Started
just playing devil’s advocate here, because i’m not sure where i actually stand on this thing. but i know that i (and a bunch of other ladies) get angry at fashion mags for only showing women who are 5’10″ and 100 pounds– body dysmorphia and all that jazz. is that any different from someone like Pioneer Woman always showing her happy, healthy family next to her unhealthy food? your brain naturally makes the correlation: anorexic model= glamour; butter-friend-butter= idealistic, down-home Americana?
also, i think the “personal responsibility” argument only goes as far as thinking that everyone is educated to the same extent about nutrition, which i really think is not the case. it’s sort of like when you read on a twizzlers package that they have to clarify that it contains no actual fruit. you and i think, “no shit, sherlock,” but i think we’d be flabberghasted by how many people don’t actually understand how the human body gets fuel.
one can clearly read my politics into this argument (i’m a lefty liberal who thinks that we need to increase the standards of public education and also have significant government participation in basic American education and lifestyle); i’m sure people who are libertarian think i’m nuts.
This is true, Pioneer Woman posing her all-American family next to “here’s your next heart attack” sweets is going to be a problem for some people. It’s not dissimilar from Nutella marketing itself as an “easy, worry-free breakfast” for “busy moms.” People are so quick to take things at surface value that they’re shocked when Paula Deen or Nutella are deemed unhealthy.
I recently reviewed “Why Woman Need Fat” for Blogher and I was *shocked* by the number of fellow reviewers who commented about the book somewhere along the lines of “I always heard that I should eat whole foods/organic, but I never understood why.” ARE YOU FREAKIN’ KIDDING ME? I wanted to smash my head into the computer screen. In a past life, I wanted to be a dietitian, so I do tend to think the general public is more educated about nutrition than they really are. I think a lot more food education and perhaps a revisit of the food pyramid from the American government would be very helpful, but I’m not sure we can ever overcome the American susceptibility for marketing or lack of common sense.
Ada recently posted..Life in the Woods: Everyday Challenges
one of the reasons why i had issue with the last decade’s focus on math and science education is that it doesn’t teach kids how to interpret language. equations are great and a focus on math and science is definitely going to help the country stay relevant, but what ever happened to reading comprehension? and i don’t just mean those multiple-choice questions on standardized tests.
“comprehension” means being able to look past the package and deduce what’s happening in front of you, or even TO you. my ex BF’s brother went to a non-traditional university, and has joked in the past that he majored in “propaganda”– in the sense that he learned about marketing and how to get past marketing. THAT is something more americans should learn. critical thinking skills!
Whenever I watch the news that’s my thought exactly. “How can anyone believe this? Have we all lost our critical thinking skills?” I think its a serious problem.
Katie @ Newcomb Home recently posted..Livin’ on the Edge
We need better critical thinking skills AND an understanding that the real story is past the headline. I see so many news stories highlighting new medical research that say things like “X Linked to Cancer” when the study shows relationship but no causality. The average American is going to read that as “X CAUSES Cancer” and the media knows it. It’s so frustrating.
I’m actually not a huge fan of PW in general, because of some not-so flattering things I’ve learned or read about her, and because I’m not a fan of her style of cooking. I’m a sucker for cake batter. . . but I think I’ll stick with licking the bowl after the cake’s in the oven. :) Small doses.
Jane @ The Borrowed Abode recently posted..My first official “blogger meetup”
oh, i’m with you on that. when i read magazines that say, “craving sweets? try raspberries!” i think: you are joking, you joking jokester. but that also doesn’t mean that i regularly consume a dozen cupcakes on the day i make them.
now i’m curious about PW. off to the googles.
I have to agree that the personal responsibility argument only goes so far. I’ve spent a fair amount of time doing nutrition counseling and it’s amazing how highly educated people are oblivious when it comes to their food choices. For example, I had a client who insisted to me that eating nearly half a stick of butter every day was healthy because she was using real butter – it’s all-natural. While I agree with her that real butter is better for you than over-processed margarine and butter-like spread, she was breaking the “all things in MODERATION rule” big time. In addition, the sheer volume of information available to the average joe is overwhelming and confusing. Follow the history of whether eggs are healthy for your diet, for example.
Anyway, I like your overall lean here. Why DO we need cake batter dip? And, how DID you not throw up?
Sarah P recently posted..30 for 30 Remix – Days 5 & 6
i always find nutritional information to be overwhelming. when i got diagnosed with lupus, i was told to eat healthy and, for some reason, avoid sprouts. it took me YEARS to finally find the reason as to why i wasn’t supposed to eat sprouts. i’m not on a restrictive meal plan, honestly, but i couldn’t imagine being someone who had to truly watch what she ate for health reasons. you need an advanced degree to get beyond the headlines and WebMD onslaught of news. the new one i heard is that white sugar gives you cancer… i can’t even imagine how americans survive for 70+ years.
I actually don’t read PW… although I have a friend IRL who loves her to death. I can’t cook though so that probably explains it, haha. I’m not a huge fan of sugar though, so I probably would have had the same reaction as you. Ick.
my mom told me about PW– i read her love story on the blog, thought it was cute; that’s one of the reasons why i started this here blog. but i feel like to many of our “big bloggers” have effed with the message. i know that i present my life as real and factually as i can; i’m starting to think from the conversations on this post that a lot of us connect with each other because what we post *is* real, and we’re not inspired by the well-marketed women anymore.
I have never laughed so hard….
I gave up all things gluten almost 6 months ago and sugar as well. Fast food years ago including all premade boxed, frozen anything. When I look at the tastey treats that everyone is making, I admit I do drool just a little. The cake box batter, cool whip, yogurt made me almost vomit. I was feeling kinda bad for the poor yogurt that was in such bad company.
Michele recently posted..Relaxed
Heh, I like this. And I probably wouldn’t like cake batter dip, thank goodness. I saw that on Pinterest the other day and was like uhhhhhhh. Kudos to you for trying it, though, so the rest of us don’t have to.
Seriously, some of the stuff that passes for cooking makes me think a lot of these famous foodies are going to keel over dead in short order.
Christa the BabbyMama recently posted..If I Want a Valentine’s Day Gift, I’ll Just Buy It My Own Darn Self
I have a hatred for Pinterest. I managed to get an invite about a year ago, and just couldn’t see what everyone was raving about. Maybe because I’m not really a visual person.
I find enough “ideas” and “inspiration” by Googling or reading other peoples’ blogs. Pinterest just adds pressure for me to add another 1000 things to my to-do list. (Or at least that’s how it seems!)
ARC recently posted..We Baked: Blueberry Orange Flaxseed Baked Milk Muffins
{ 1 trackback }