Trix Cake – A Fun Day Baking in the Betty Crocker Kitchen!

Trix Cake | ZoeBakes (7 of 10)

Nearly two years ago my friends at General Mills challenged me to do something fun and a little out of the box (sorry, couldn’t resist that one) with their cereals. I came up with a cake layered with all the flavors of Trix and decorated the outside with a mosaic of the colorful cereal. (You can see the original cake here) Since I created that cake, the General Mills cereal team has been busy changing the recipes of their cereals. They left everything we love about Trix and Cocoa Puffs and all the other cereals they make, but we as a nation are paying greater and greater attention to what we eat and especially what we feed our children. We’re trying to eat a bit less sugar and don’t want to feed our kids artificial flavors and synthetic dyes. Consumers have been telling General Mills that and they listened. Now they are working to take colors from artificial sources, artificial flavors and even some sugar out of their cereals. Proof that when people speak, even giant companies take heed.

Last week I was invited to the General Mills campus in Minneapolis to meet the cereal recipe developers who made this switch happen, learn how they did it (fruits and veggie concentrates and spice extracts are the answer), and taste the results. I also got a chance to bake with some of my favorite food bloggers. And I remade my mosaic cake with the new Trix cereal recipe free from artificial flavors and colors.  Still beautiful and the cake tasted even better.

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Trix Cake

Trix Cake Recipe | ZoëBakes | Zoë François

We really have David Chang and Christina Tosi of the Momokuku restaurant group in NYC to thank for elevating breakfast cereal from a mere bowl of milk to high-end desserts. They’ve been serving cereal milk (you know the flavored milk at the end of a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios) as panna cotta and soft serve ice creams at their Milk Bar to rave reviews. It’s created a bit of a sensation. I recently went to Travail, a local restaurant where the food is art and the chefs are entertainers, and what did I see on the pantry shelf, a box of Lucky Charms.  We all have fond childhood memories of reading the box as we ate the contents, but most adults I know wouldn’t sit down to a bowl of it in the morning. But, as a dessert? You bet, that makes total sense to me.

General Mills sent me a big selection of their cereals and challenged me to think outside the box, beyond breakfast and sticky marshmallow bars (not that there is anything wrong with that either). I knew right away that Trix was going to be my muse. I always loved it as a kid. Everything from the silly rabbit commercials to that bright pink milk at the end of the bowl. I set out to create a cake using the bright colors and fruity flavors. For my first attempt I hoped to suspend the round cereal in cake batter to create a polka dot interior. As the cake baked I realized all the little colorful balls were floating to the top and I ended up with a layer of cereal confetti. It was pretty, but the cereal didn’t soften enough, so they were still crunchy and not a good texture in the cake. Then the perfect solution came to me… Read More