Baking on the cheap!

Today John and I have gone to his brother's house for the first BBQ of the year. We were asked to bring some form of desserts with us and after seeing little cakes in Sainsbury's I decided that I really wanted to make some of my own instead of having boring store bought cakes. 

As we are on a budget at the minute with me not having a job, I chose to buy the ready made packet mix. For 44p, we got 2 packets of cake mix which was supposed to make 2 full Victoria Sponge cakes. However, smaller cakes are much more fun and they work just as well. We already had eggs at home which is the only other ingredient you need with these mixes. Instead of having plain sponge cakes, I added some hot chocolate to one packet to make chocolate cakes as well. Here's how they turned out without any toppings. The 2 packets ended up making 24 small cakes. 

To make these cakes a bit less boring we also needed some kind of toppings so we did end up spending a bit more on these. To make the cakes a bit more interesting, we got a couple of bars of milk chocolate to melt and some white chocolate buttons for the tops. We also bought vanilla topping and some sprinkles. The whole cost for the toppings came to around £5 but the sprinkles will last us ages as the packet has 4 different kinds inside. 

Baking doesn't have to cost a fortune, especially if you have toppings already in the house. Now that we have some toppings that will last, I will definitely be buying these cheap packets of mix again. They're so easy and only take minutes to make, especially if you have an electric whisk like we do. In total, making the cakes and putting the toppings on only took an hour. We had to bake 12 at a time as we only have one tray for the cases too. 

I think these cakes are a great, cheap way of having something nice in the house without it having to be anything fancy or expensive. 

Does anyone else use these cheap packets? If so, what do you think of them?