Introduction
This vlog was my first seasonal review feature, where I exclusively reviewed one brand’s seasonal products. For Christmas, I picked PastryBase due to having a vegan gingerbread house kit. It’s super hard to find vegan gingerbread house kits in regular stores.
I tried PastryBase’s vegan gingerbread house kit, sugar cookie kit, and hot chocolate bomb kit. Here is what I think of them, and if you’re interested in buying them, you can get all of these products discounted with their vegan holiday kit bundle.
Vegan Hot Chocolate Bomb Kit (7/10)
The vegan hot chocolate kit was pretty good. The chocolate chips that came with the kit were sweet and marvelous, while the marshmallows were relatively okay and had too much of a vanilla flavor. The hot chocolate bomb molds seemed pretty flimsy and cheap. It froze well in the freezer, but I struggled to make the hot chocolate bombs after that, probably because it was my first time making hot chocolate bombs.
The chocolate kept falling apart when I added the hot cocoa mix and marshmallows to the molds. Then, when I tried warming it up enough on the stovetop to get the chocolate halves to combine, the tops started melting. After everything was together enough, decorating was impossible because none of the decorations stuck onto the hot chocolate bombs.
After I warmed up some unsweetened almond milk in the microwave, the hot chocolate bomb worked as I expected because it exploded in the mug. It didn’t stir without my help. It initially tasted nice and sweet until you got to the bottom and got some bitterness to it with a slight aftertaste and the excess hot cocoa mix.
You may like my blog posts on hot cocoa and vegan eggnog.
Vegan Sugar Cookie Kit (6/10)
Creating PastryBase’s vegan sugar cookie kit was a trainwreck. The cookie dough was almost impossible to work with because it didn’t cooperate with me. It was too grainy after adding the needed ingredients, so I added more water. After it seemed fine enough to knead, it didn’t want to stay together, and it was tough to cut snowflake cookies.
After I started cutting out the sugar cookies, Sabrina kept jumping on the table because she wanted to join the party and test the cookie dough. Eventually, she gave up, and I made the rest of the dough into ugly balls. The frosting glaze looked like liquidy puke, and I glazed and put sprinkles on the cookies later in the evening.
The frosting reminded me of my great aunt’s sugar cookies, but these cookies were way worse than hers. The glaze was decently sugary and sweet, but it should look a little more edible next time. The cookies were floury and doughy, and they were nowhere close to being sweet. They were missing something that could have enhanced the cookies’ flavor, like vanilla, but these cookies needed a lot more help in the flavor department beyond that.
I also have a blog post on vegan cookies.
Vegan Gingerbread House Kit (5/10)
The vegan gingerbread house kit was an utter disappointment. If you were dreaming this was a regular-sized gingerbread house, you must be joking because this was about an inch tall. We were supposed to make a village of tiny houses, and most people would find the advertising deceiving because it wasn’t that obvious that these houses were tiny.
The assembly was awful. After I stirred everything in the bowl, the dough was very grainy, so I added more water to compensate. The package said this would make five gingerbread houses when I cut out eight. The stencils weren’t the best at cutting the front of the house with the door. The stencil had the house sides, front, back, and roof connected on one stencil, which was nifty.
There was barely any frosting in here. The frosting was horrible at keeping the gingerbread house together. It didn’t bake evenly in the oven, making it difficult to put it together. The gingerbread tasted terrible and was too hard to eat for those who enjoyed eating their gingerbread house after assembly. The decorations were merely sprinkles and a candy cane, nowhere near enough to make the gingerbread houses look nice. However, Crash found the gingerbread house delicious and ruined one of the ones I made.
Feel free to check out my blog posts on gingerbread recipes and vegan gingerbread houses.
Conclusion
These vegan Christmas kits were better than I thought. At the same time, I don’t always know what to expect from brands anymore because they usually let me down.
PastryBase Pros
- vegan
- organized kits
- descriptive instructions
- easy to make
- pretty branding
- decent hot chocolate bombs
PastryBase Cons
- pathetic decorations
- yucky sugar cookies
- puny gingerbread houses
- unappetizing overall
- cheap supplies
- deceiving advertising
Check out my vegan Christmas taste tests on sweets, treats, and non-alcoholic drinks if you haven’t already. Have some peppermint, gingerbread, and eggnog to enjoy more Christmas flavors. Lastly, my final Christmas blog post of the year will be on vegan Christmas recipes. Stay tuned for more plant-based goodies coming soon.