Kaylee's not-a-blog » Food » Crockpot » Aldi's "Baker's Corner" lemon pound cake mix, with cream cheese

Aldi's has a separate house brand ("Baker's Corner") for baking mixes, which, in my experience, have all been good.
During my last Aldi run (2021-Jul), I spotted a "lemon pound cake mix", and decided to get one to try in my crockpot.
Just over a year later, I finally got around to making it.

On the back, there's two preparation versions, one using cream cheese.
I had read that cream cheese lasts for several days fridge free, so decided to try it ('cuz Science demands it).
It worked extremely well! :)
I made it in two half-sized batches (due to the small size of my crockpot) almost a week apart, overcooked the first batch (~6 hours on Low), and perfectly cooked the second batch (~4 hours on Low), which is shown below.

Pictures:

The box:

Rear side, with two sets of preparation instructions (I used the bottom "Cream Cheese Swirl" variant):

Pouches (main pound cake, lemon glaze)

Nutrition facts and ingredients list:

All main dry ingredients, ready to mix (main mix (top), dry butter (bottom left), dry egg (bottom center), dry milk (bottom right)):


after mixing, before adding water:


main mix, after mixing with water, in parchment paper in crock:

Cream cheese, 2nd half, 9 days after purchase (stored in a cheap styrofoam cooler, with one large fast food drink cup full of ice that would have helped cool it only for the first couple of days):

in bowl:

after mixing with contents of lemon "glaze" pouch:

Complete main mix, with cream cheese mixture on top & roughly "chopped" down into cake mix, in crockpot, ready to start:

Cooked pound cake, top (this time I used a knife to check for doneness at two or three spots):

closeup of outside (somewhat caramelized):

closeups of inside:

Review:

This was stunningly easy, and tasted great.
This is 100% win, and I plan to stock this mix (or similar) as part of my "standard" pantry. :)

The first batch, I used too much milk powder (had forgotten to half it), overcooked it (should have checked it after 4 or 5 hours), and did not do as good a job "swirling" the cream cheese mixture into the main cake portion.
It was edible, but dry and the main pound cake part was "meh".

The second batch, I had learned my lessons, and it was superb! :)