Have you seen the Krusteaz products in your local grocery store? They make a variety of product mixes, from their famous pancake and waffle mixes to more like muffins, cornbreads, brownies, bars (such as lime bars, pecan bars, lemon bars), breads (including flatbread!), cobblers, scones, and of course the mix that started the company, pie crust mix. They have gluten free products as well.

Krusteaz (a combination of Crust and Ease”) started in 1932 with a women’s bridge club in Seattle and their idea for an easy pie crust in which all you had to do was add water and that’s it!  From then they expanded to pancake mix with the “just add water” formula. They marketed it in the 1960s with a “Krusteaz Kurtesy Kitchen” that was a pancake and biscuit food cart that made it fresh on a grill built into cart.

#TBT to our traveling diner days, circa 1960. #krusteaz #vintage

A photo posted by Krusteaz (@krusteaz) on Apr 16, 2015 at 3:09pm PDT

All of their mixes promise to be super easy and often just need you to add a liquid (water, oil, beer or carbonated beverage for the beer bread, etc) and if needed eggs. Everything else is already in the box, be it Apple Cinnamon pancakes to Blueberry Belgian waffles to Garlic and Onion flatbreads.  The only exception is for cobblers and pies, which you naturally have to fill in yourself with your fruit of choice, but they provide you instructions based on whether the fruit is fresh or frozen. For the cookies you add just 2 things, egg and butter.

Words to bake by. #seizethekrusteaz #bakingquote A photo posted by Krusteaz (@krusteaz) on Jul 13, 2015 at 4:27pm PDT

Krusteaz also has a great fundraising support if you are looking for ideas for an event to raise money for your school, public charity, hospital, community service or religious organization. As part of Krusteaz Gives Back, they help support a Pancake Breakfast Fundraising Program that includes reimbursing your organization for 50% of the cost of Krusteaz pancake mix as well as providing lots of online tools and press kid and such to help organize and promote the event.

I have decided to partner with Krusteaz to offer a FREE Krusteaz Back to School prize pack that includes

1. Krusteaz Bakery Style Cookie Mixes including
   • Triple Chocolate Chunk
     
   • Meyer Lemon
     
   • Double Peanut Butter
     
   • Brown Sugar Oatmeal
     
   • Oatmeal Scotchie
     
   • Butter Vanilla Sugar
     
2. Krusteaz insulated lunch bag
3. Krusteaz apron and oven mitt

For this reader giveway, all you have to do is use the Rafflecopter widget below to enter in the way you want. Good luck!

I couldn’t resist some of the cookie combos that Krusteaz has created – Oatmeal Scotchie that has butterscotch chips and oats? Or Meyer Lemon cookie? F though immediately voted for the Triple Chocolate Chunk and the Double Peanut Butter, so I caved to his wishes.

I made the Triple Chocolate Chunk, which boasts 3 kinds of chocolate, first. It took only 5 minutes to mix the butter and egg with the mix by hand, and then the cookies needed to be baked for only about 10 minutes so it was very fast from desire for cookie to eating cookie. I was pleased to see the size of the chunks in the mix.

I also made the Brown Sugar Oatmeal – I used olive oil instead of butter, and these were wonderfully soft and chunky

And Krusteaz offers great ideas if you visit their Recipes website for more creative ways to use their cookies as part of their #SeizetheKrusteaz campaign. For instance use their Brown Sugar Oatmeal cookie mix to make Cookie Topped Baked Apples, or the Double Peanut Butter Cookie Mix to make Double Peanut Butter Cookie Banana Pudding.

Images from Krusteaz

One idea for their Triple Chocolate Chunk Cookie mix is to use it for a Cherry Topped Cheesecake with Triple Chocolate Chunk Cookie Crust or for a fun colorful dessert, use the Butter Vanilla Sugar Cookie mix for a Sugar Cookie Fruit Pizza.

Images from Krusteaz

Kudos for their many creative ideas and working with so many great ambassadors – their Facebook and Instagram is pretty mouthwatering! You can stay informed of their ideas by checking the Krusteaz Facebook or Instagram @Krusteaz or the Twitter @Krusteaz or hashtag #krusteaz.

What are you favorite kind of cookies? Do you have a creative way of using cookies similar to how Krusteaz offers those ideas to #SeizetheKrusteaz? Have you tried any of the Krusteaz products before?

Don’t forget to enter the giveway, and good luck!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclosure: I received a goodie package of cookie mixes from Krusteaz for this post, and the Back to School prize pack is also being provided by Krusteaz. I will always provide my honest opinion and assessment of all products and experiences I may be given. The views and opinions expressed in this blog are entirely my own.