My sister and I had an Easy-Bake Oven in the ’80s. I remember peeking inside the little cavity and being almost blinded by that 100-watt bulb that actually burned hot enough to cook the little cakes and cookies we made.

With the advent of compact-flourescent light bulbs and the popularity of 3-way bulbs, 100-watt light bulbs are becoming increasingly hard to find. If you have the brand new Easy-Bake Ultimate Oven, that’s not a problem. It actually cooks the food with a safely-contained heating element, eliminating the need for an inefficient light bulb!

We received the Easy-Bake Ultimate Oven to try out. Haiden had never really indicated a real interest in cooking or baking, so I wasn’t sure how excited he’d be about using it. I knew my niece and nephew (6 and 7 years old) would go crazy over it, though, so we brought it over to my sister’s house to share the experience with them.

The Ultimate Easy-Bake Oven comes with three mixes, Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie Mix, Red Velvet Cake Mix and Pink Frosting Mix. The kids decided to make the cookies.

As shown above, the oven comes with one baking pan that measures less 3 inches wide by less than 5 inches long. Believe it or not, that pan is supposed to hold about a dozen cookies. Since the mix calls for less than a teaspoonful of water, the kids made about 8 tiny cookies. The cookies did spread out a bit while baking, so we learned that we indeed should have made the full dozen individual cookies!

I didn’t matter that the cookies were thin and connected, Haiden and his two cousins were ridiculously proud of the results!

Three things I love about the Ultimate Easy-Bake Oven:

• True to it’s name, the oven is EASY to use. Just plug it in, turn it on and let it pre-heat. By the time the kids are done mixing up the treats and arranging them in the pans, the oven is ready to go.
• The mixes are tasty. Really, I thought that the kids liked the cookies because they made them with their own little hands, but they were kind enough to spare one tiny cookie for me. I was surprised at how good it was! Plus the itty-bitty portions aren’t going to spoil appetites or make anyone sick.
• It’s safe. The cooking chamber is enclosed and the pans need to be pushed or lifted through little doors in order to get them into the baking area. The oven includes a special tool to push them in and lift them out, keeping tiny fingers away from the hottest part of the oven.

• Adults really need to be hands-on when using this toy. I totally get that adult supervision is required and guidance is to be expected when using the oven. After all, it’s a toy that actually heats up and bakes treats! At the same time, I like toys where kids can really “own” the whole process. No matter the age, even after having an adult help with the instructions, I don’t think any kid under 10 or 12 could do this without adult intervention. Using the pan-pusher tool is really tricky, and kids can’t get the pans out of the oven by themselves. Plus, there are little details that must be followed, like the cupcake pan needs to be set ON the baking try before putting it in the oven.
• Additional Easy-Bake mixes are expensive. Prices for the mixes range from $5 to $7.25 on Amazon. They’re all $6.88 on Walmart.com. In my opinion, that’s pretty spendy!
• There’s no window or timer: An external timer needs to be set to keep treats in the oven for the directed time. In the same vein, you can’t watch the treats cooking or monitor their progress. Not only would that be fun from a science perspective, it would also be nice since taking the pans out isn’t fun, and I’d prefer to only do it once per tray!

Overall, the Ultimate Easy-Bake Oven is super-fun to use, and all three of the kids had a great time making their treats. Since it’s intended for kids ages 8 and up, we all agreed to leave the oven at my sister’s house. Haiden and Piper are only 3 and 2 years old, so it just made sense to leave it in the hands of kids who are a bit older. Plus, they’re happy to bake with my kiddos whenever we visit!

Buy it: The Ultimate Easy-Bake Oven has a suggested price of $49.99. It’s available at retailers nationwide, on Walmart.com for $39.88, and on Amazon.com for $42.48.

Enter to Win an Easy-Bake Ultimate Oven {$49.99 ARV}

1 Winner will receive an Easy-Bake Ultimate Oven 

There are some great ways to earn extra entries into this giveaway! All mandatory and extra entries must be submitted within the Rafflecopter Giveaway box below. 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

If you’re reading this article in an email newsletter, feed reader or a mobile device, you may not see the above Rafflecopter box. Please visit babygoodbuys.com and enter the giveaway there. 

Comments are open on this post, but all entries must be done in the giveaway box above.

Hasbro provided the Easy-Bake Ultimate Oven to review and an additional one as a giveaway prize. All opinions are my own.

As always, if you have any trouble entering this giveaway, or if you have any questions, please contact me! 

Have you tried whole grain pasta before? My previous experience with whole wheat pasta was back when I was in college. I bought one package of wheat spaghetti and I was decidedly unimpressed. Sauce wouldn’t stick to the hard, flavorless pieces, so there was nothing that could make it appetizing enough to eat.

Regular pasta is delicious, but the empty calories are something I’d like to avoid. Plus, I’d rather give my own kiddos something with a bit more nutritional value. When I heard that Barilla had come up with a new whole grain pasta made with 51% whole wheat, I really wanted to try it to see how it stacked up against my memories of the whole wheat pasta from several years ago.

Barilla makes delicious pasta and Barilla Whole Grain is no exception! When you want to pair the many health benefits of fiber with the great taste of pasta, you can feel confident about trying Whole Grain precisely because it’s made by Barilla. Generations have trusted our experience making pasta and our commitment to perfecting the taste. Our family recipes, superior ingredients and passion for excellent food are all combined in Whole Grain.

Diets rich in whole grain foods and other plant foods and low in total fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol, may help reduce the risk of heart disease and certain cancers.

I received a Barilla Whole Grain Taste & Share Challenge Kit containing the following:

• Barilla Whole Grain Linguine
• Barilla Thin Spaghetti
• Barilla Whole Grain Spaghetti
• Barilla Whole Grain Medium Shells
• Barilla Whole Grain Rotini
• Barilla Whole Grain Penne
• A Barilla apron
• Academia Barilla 100% Italian Olive Oil
• Academia Barilla Balsamic Vinegar of Modena, aged 3 years
• Academia Barilla Pesto Alla Genovese
• Academia Barilla Canned Cherry Tomatoes
• Academia Barilla Sicilian Sea Salt with Black Olives

All of those Academia Barilla items are not your ordinary grocery-store items. These are premium products that are imported from Italy, so I wanted to make something special with them.

I used Barilla’s Dinner Kit on the TryBarillaWholeGrain.com site to choose a few recipes that included the ingredients I wanted to use. Then, I cooked up a small batch of pasta for Haiden and Piper to eat, while I set the rest of the box aside to make for my husband and I a bit later that night.

Haiden and Piper are kind of fickle when it comes to pasta. They’ll love a pasta dish one night only to turn up their noses at it the next night. I was happy that our taste-testing night of Barilla Whole Grain Rotini with a side of vegetables and a sprinkle of fresh Romano cheese was a hit! Both kiddos ate their portions, and they were both happy throughout dinner. Since they’re two and three years old, I’m confident that that translates to “two thumbs up” in their language!

After we got the little ones to bed, I combined parts of two recipes I found in the Dinner Kit to make  a whole grain pasta dish for my husband and me. I cooked up the rest of the pasta and added key ingredients from both Rotini with Cherry Tomatoes, Mozzarella and Basil and Rotini with Cherry Tomatoes, Vitalia Onions, Basil Pesto and Tuscan Pecorino.

I ended up with a dish that was incredibly good! I combined the Barilla Whole Grain Rotini with the Academia Barilla cherry tomatoes, pesto and a little bit of the olive oil. Then, I topped it with fresh mozzarella and a few tablespoons of fresh Pecorino Romano cheese. This was outstanding served with a few pieces of crusty bread!

All the flavors really made for a great meal, and the whole grain pasta definitely was a huge improvement over the “old school” wheat pasta that I’d tried in the past. My husband did comment that the texture “still feels healthy” but neither of us thought that was a bad thing.

Looking back, it’s making me laugh that his comment was actually a small criticism! Healthy isn’t a bad thing  At the same time, the Barilla Whole Grain pasta was absolutely a huge improvement in this department compared to other whole grain pasta brands I’ve experienced!

Overall, the thing I like best about the Barilla’s new whole grain pasta is the flavor. This really does taste just like regular pasta. The flavor is mild and definitely doesn’t taste grainy!

I’ll definitely be cooking Barilla’s Whole Grain pasta for my family in the future. I’m sure our little ones will insist on plain dishes with just a little sauce or cheese, but I found a few other recipes on Barilla’s main website that I’d like to try. Both the Barilla Whole Grain Spaghetti with Fresh Vegetables and the Barilla Whole Grain Medium Shells with Roasted Cauliflower and Cherry Tomatoes look delicious! Plus, they might expand Haiden and Piper’s palettes, which is something we definitely need to work on!

Right now, the Barilla wants to give you and your friends a Barilla printable coupon. When you head over to the Barilla Taste and Share Challenge website you can share your love of Barilla Whole Grain Pasta with two friends on Facebook. Your friend will get a Barilla printable coupon to save $1 on their next box of Barilla Whole Grain pasta and you’ll get a $1 off 2 boxes printable coupon.

ENTER TO WIN A BARILLA WHOLE GRAIN TASTE & SHARE PRIZE PACK! {$100 ARV}

3 WINNERS will receive a prize pack valued at $100 with the following products {pictured above}: 

• 6 boxes of Barilla Whole Grain Pasta
• A Barilla chef apron
• Academia Barilla 100% Italian Olive Oil
• Academia Barilla Balsamic Vinegar of Modena, aged 3 years
• Academia Barilla Pesto Alla Genovese
• Academia Barilla Canned Cherry Tomatoes
• Academia Barilla Sicilian Sea Salt with Black Olives

This is an amazing prize! The olive oil, balsamic vinegar, pesto and sea salt are all definitely gift-worthy, so you could even check a holiday gift off your shopping list if you won!

There are some great ways to earn extra entries into this giveaway! All mandatory and extra entries must be submitted within the Rafflecopter Giveaway box below. 

Comments are open on this post, but all entries must be done in the giveaway box above. No comments will be counted towards giveaway entries.

I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour by Mom Central Consulting on behalf of Barilla and received a Taste & Share Challenge Kit to facilitate my review, kits to giveaway, and a promotional item to thank me for taking the time to participate. 

As always, if you have any trouble entering this giveaway, or if you have any questions, please contact me!