Extra Flavor for Your Goodies

Recently I was sent a product to try out via my Tomoson connections. This is a Fuzion Cookware Small Flavor Injectors Squeeze Pipettes for candy, baked goods, or other items from Fozion Cookware. Normally I'd use some of our friends and various gaming groups to try these out but there was a catch with Easter approaching -- split time between seeing friends. So I made two batches of goodies so you can see the results today. I got a coupon to order the flavor injectors from Amazon at no cost to myself; no other form of compensation was received for this review.

First Test Ingredients

My first surprise is that these do not have flavor in them; these are just the plastic injectors. If I'd known that, I wouldn't have applied to test these. If you are a business, like my friend with the cupcakes, or an individual/family a hosting a big party, this really just adds a bit of work to your preparation. Even for a big event why use tiny injectors when you could use the same one for multiple treats? It does offer more direct amount control and that would be important for professionals. But how important is it for the home cook? How easy it to figure out how to use? With 50 injectors, you could make up to fifty different baking, candy making, or cooking projects if you used the same flavor for every item each time... assuming they don't break. Ah, but they do! To make three flavors of strawberries and two flavors of donut holes in my first test I used not 5 injectors but 8 injectors. These are not washable so you can't reuse them. The second issue I have is that there are no recipes suggested to use with the injectors. I contacted the sales folks for the product and they said they will be coming out with an ebook but that doesn't help me or anyone else who currently buys this, does it? So I'll just go with their suggestions of fruits and basic baked goods and see how that works. The person I contacted said I shouldn't need to change the recipes but I have some doubts given that I'll be adding in flavor via liquid means.

Hazelnut Flavoring in Injector in Strawberry

I started off easy for my monthly gaming group -- strawberries dipped in chocolate and injected with flavors. After washing, coring, and drying, I dipped a pound of strawberries (36 of them) into white or 48% chocolate. Let that coating set, drizzled the 48% chocolate on 1/2 the white ones, let that drizzling set, and then prepared my injectors. I used a toothpick because the strawberries are a bit hard. It didn't really help because to be blunt -- strawberries are very moist, they do not soak up either the French Vanilla or Hazelnut flavoring very well. Ultimately the liquid came back out and pooled in the hollow of the berries. The flavor did soak in and infuse them but I wouldn't suggest using these with berries. In fact, later testing reveals that the dryer and smaller the food you are injecting, the better the process works and the more intense the flavors.

Mint Flavoring Infused Donut Holes

Next I tried chocolate and plain donut holes... sadly these were pre-glazed, I couldn't find ones that weren't, and before I invested my time in making cupcakes, I wanted to see how this worked. These were also day-old products so slightly drier. It worked really well. Make sure you push the injector in full then pull out half-way, as I did with the strawberries (didn't help), and then gently push the injector bulb and the baked good soaks it up. Most of the time. Twice the liquid burst from the other side of the donut hole and once the stem of the injector broke and the liquid came out. I injected Salted Caramel and Mint flavorings; the mint added a bit of color as well. You can definitely tell which donuts had which flavor.

Finally I made some regular sized cupcakes to see if size mattered as much as moisture content of the food injected. I used a German cake mix and followed the directions to make mini and regular sized cupcakes to test the size difference. We sampled them unfrosted so that didn't interfere with the flavor and I used the salted caramel flavor because it was the strongest in the strawberries and donut holes. The mini version soaked up and diffused the flavor very well, only the very top didn't have much flavor. In the bigger cupcake the flavor as intense in the bottom half but much weaker in the top but the flavor did still soak into the entire cupcake. It seems to me that cupcakes are the way to go with these small pipettes. You could use multiple injections or try the larger variety of the squeeze pipettes.

Tell me, Sisters and Brothers who love chocolate, have you used the Fuzion Cookware Small Flavor Injectors Squeeze Pipettes yourself? What about other brands versions of these items? Leave a comment and let me know if I'm correct that these work best in smaller and dryer foods.