Price: $2.00 on sale
Serving: 1/2 bowl, 3oz. plus water
Calories: 150 per serving
Fat: 2%, 1.5g
Cholesterol: 0%, 0mg
Sodium: 30%, 730mg
Protein: 5g
Carbohydrates: 10%, 30g
Fiber: 5%, 1g
Sugar: 20g
Weight Watchers Points: 3 per serving, 6 per bowl

Betty Crocker says: A warm delicious, single-serve dessert that’s ready in minutes straight from your microwave! Now you can treat yourself to a warm indulgent dessert without all the preparation, time and clean-up!

Andrew says: First of all, I must offer my most humble apologies to Ms. Crocker for flubbing her simple instructions on assembling this mini cake. The gist of it is, you dump a packet of chocolate cake mix into the provided bowl with a quarter cup of water and mix well, then pour the soft, gooey caramel icing in pretty patterns on top of the well-mixed batter and heat, uncovered, in a microwave for about a minute and a quarter.

What happened is this: I fumbled with some measuring cups (yeah I know you should use a measuring glass for liquids, that’s beside the point) and found the one-third cup cup, for some reason completely forgetting Betty’s words. I didn’t realize my folly until well after I’d added the ample caramel goo. No matter, I thought, we shall press on for science.

Speaking of caramel, the icing is really very nice: sweet and warm and more than enough to coat the top of your mini cake batter. What happens as it “bakes” in your microwave is that the batter churns up underneath the caramel goo and swirls it throughout the nascent cake. This pleases me.

Once the cake is done, it really is advisable to — as the packaging says — let the cake sit for at least 5 minutes before consuming it. The cake got awfully hot for only spending 1 minute, 19 seconds in my microwave at approximately 780 feet above sea level (science!). Warm caramel and chocolate = good. Scalding hot caramel and chocolate = hospital.

When it was cool enough to eat — but still quite warm — I was heartened at the results, even in spite of my measuring mishap. The cake itself was very, very, very moist. The chocolate is subtle and melds well with the caramel. Even though the cake itself is chocolate, you’ll notice the name of the cake makes no reference to its chocolate nature; the caramel is the star.

In fact, as I worked my way around the rim of the cake bowl and toward the middle, I found a quadrant of the pastry that was about 70 percent caramel goo and 30 percent chocolate goo. This, too, pleases me.

All in all, this is a good way to spend about 10 minutes from start to last moist forkful, particularly if you’ve got a hankerin’ for warm, sweet, choco-caramel goo fusion.

Price: $1.00 (sale at CVS)
Serving: 1 meal, 10.3 oz.
Calories: 300
Fat: 8%, 5g
Cholesterol: 8%, 25mg
Sodium: 18%, 430mg
Protein: 17g
Carbs: 15%, 46g
Fiber: 32%, 8g
WW Points: 6 Points

Betty Crocker says: Penne pasta simmered in a robust garlic-parmesan sauce. Easy 5 minute prep. Just add water & microwave. Great for lunch. No artificial flavors.

Abi says: These aren’t very good, but I like them more than just about any microwaveable pasta in white sauce that I’ve consumed over the course of writing for HeatEatReview.com. In fact, I’ve turned to this CVS (a local drugstore) staple on multiple occasions over the past year.

Perhaps my affinity for these bowls stems from their intensely strong parmesan-garlic flavor. If you had me do a taste test on the bowls, I couldn’t identify the flavor specifically as garlicky or parmesany. Just blatantly odoriferous. Another plus (yes, smelliness seems to have become a plus), they don’t need to be frozen. This means that a) they don’t take up room in my freezer, and b) I can cook the pasta to my preferred state of doneness: just beyond toothy.

So really, the lesson from this review is that blandness is the devil and I prefer al dente pasta. Also, only buy these on sale, because they aren’t worth more than $1.25.

Dumb but true: these are not for vegetarians because they contain chicken fat. Dried powdered chicken fat. Way to reduce your market, Betty Crocker.

Price: $1.50 (sale)
Serving: 1 bowl, 3.3 oz. plus water
Calories: 400
Fat: 18%, 12g
Sodium: 18%, 420mg
Protein: 4g
Carbohydrates: 23%, 70g
Fiber: 6%, 1g

Betty says: Simply add water, stir, microwave and in minutes you’ll be enjoying a warm, delicious bowl of Molten Chocolate Cake. With Betty Crocker Warm Delights, you are just three minutes from heaven!

Abi says: Cinnamon is the taste of autumn as it transitions into winter. It is the warming tingle in a cookie and the necessary addition to steamy cup of spiced apple cider. Sadly, cinnamon is not enough to save this cake from the depths of my disappointment. At first I wasn’t sure why this cake made me so sad. It contained plenty of cinnamon, was easy to make, and did not burn my mouth. While I couldn’t say that it was a four star item, at least it was a solid three stars.

Then it hit me. From a health standpoint, this cake is a nightmare: 400 calories for less than four ounces of food? 12 grams of fat in the miniature (and I mean miniature) cake? Ugh. The frosing is a horrible mess of sickly stickiness and does nothing to rescue this dessert from the chasm of ‘yuck’.

The only reason I can see to purchase this is if you live and/or work more than 50 miles from a bakery or Starbucks and your house does not contain an oven.

So, if you live in a tent in Caribou, Maine (The most northeastern city in the US!), Sweetgrass, Montana (Duty Free Shopping), or Elko, Nevada. Oh wait, there is a Starbucks in Elko, Nevada. It is inside the Red Lion Inn and Casino on Idaho Street.

And that Starbucks reduced-fat coffee cake that I so enjoy? Here’s the competing nutritional info. Starbucks wins on every point, even price.

Starbucks Reduced-Fat Cinnamon Swirl Coffee Cake

Price: $1.75 (every day)
Serving: 1 cake, 3.7 oz.
Calories: 330
Fat: 10g
Sodium: 390mg
Protein: 4g
Carbohydrates: 62g
Fiber: 1g

The Starbucks coffee cake is bigger, has fewer calories, less fat, and less sodium. It is also moist and fluffy AND has a cinnamon swirl and a crunchy streusely topping. Now, this is what I called a Cinnamon Swirl Cake.

Photo by Scuzzi at flickr.

Price: $1.00
Serving: 1 bowl, 3.1 oz. plus water
Calories: 360
Fat: 16%, 10g
Sodium: 43%, 1020mg
Protein: 13g
Carbs: 18%, 55g
Fiber: 8%, 2g

Betty says: Rotini pasta in a rich three-cheese sauce

Abi says: FYI, the three cheeses in this meal are cheddar, parmesan, and blue cheese. This meal is superbly cheesy and when on sale for less than a dollar is definitely worth the price. I ate mine with an apple, a couple of hardboiled eggs (only the egg whites, I can’t stand yolks), and a couple of squares of dark chocolate. It made for a warm and satisfying lunch on what turned out to be a glorious (60 degrees in mid-December) day.

I wasn’t pleased with the 5 minute, 30 second microwave time required of the meal. I also wasn’t pleased with the immense amount (40 seconds) of stirring required to mix all of the cheese powder with water. Yes, I am that lazy. The stirring was a lot of work, but the results were well worth it.

At first I didn’t understand why I was so loathe to stir this uncooked meal when I have no problem making a temporary foil baking dish for my Morningstar Corn Dogs. Then I realized that I was worried I might splash bright orange macaroni water on myself. This meal is an orange that could best be described as ‘nuclear’. It contains no artificial flavoring (go cheese!) but has artificial coloring up the wazoo. If Betty took out the artificial flavoring, I would probably be a lot happier to eat this meal regularly with less worry about splashing myself with bright orange dye. On the upside for Betty, this meal could be relabeled as ‘All Natural’ and she could start making a ton of money off of yuppyish moms everywhere.

Notice I didn’t mention the 43% of daily sodium? Well, now I am mentioning it. This meal contains a heck of a lot of sodium. I was sort of embarrassed when I commented on how the meal was pretty good and my coworker Chad admonished me with “Yeah, but I bet it contains a lot of sodium.”

He’s right. It does.