Yellow cake covered in buttercream is one of life’s greatest joys. There’s a reason we use cake to celebrate birthdays – it’s joyful, delicious and can be full of flavorful surprises! However, the universality of cake does not mean that it is effortless to prepare. In fact, perfecting flawless cake layers isn’t as easy as it seems.
Personally, I don’t mind baking homemade chocolate cake, but if I’m honest, I like the taste of a good boxed cake mix for my yellow cake. However, not all yellow cake mixes are created equal. I ate my fair share of yellow cake that was too sweet or, worse, tasted synthetic.
Since a yellow cake was requested for an upcoming family birthday, I thought: What better way to find the best boxing mix than asking the experts? I reached out to four bakers, and there’s one brand they all recommend: Betty Crocker.
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The experts in cake mixes
The box mix that has it all
“Betty Crocker Super Moist Yellow Cake Mix Mix for the win!” exclaims D’Acunto. “It’s always even and always loose.” Waterson supports D’Acunto. “After testing many of the boxed cake mixes available on the market, I can confidently say that the taste and texture of Betty Crocker is the best.”
Consistency is clearly the key, and Betty has it down pat. But what else do cake lovers like about this brand? It’s a favorite, says Kasavan, because “it’s incredibly tender and moist and has the nice nostalgic flavor you look for in yellow cake.”
The nostalgia she speaks of is also important to Kaminski. “If you close your eyes and imagine yellow cake,” she says, “the smell, the light and soft sponge texture, the slightly buttery taste, this cake is it.”
Simply Recipes / Betty Crocker
When it comes to texture, “some yellow cake mixes can produce a doughier, heavier and denser cake, but not Betty Crocker’s,” says D’Acunto. “This has a naturally rich and dense consistency and is light and fluffy.”
Kasavan explains that Betty achieves this perfect consistency in part because the package includes pudding in the mix. “This pudding is the reason why the cake is particularly soft, moist and evenly baked,” she says. “The result is a cake with a very even crumb.”
Betty Crocker is also a favorite because of the sweetness (or lack of sweetness). “So many other yellow cake batters are easy Away too sweet,” says D’Acunto. “Betty Crocker has mastered the balance between sweetness and flavor.”
Or as Kaminski so aptly puts it: “It’s just good, the way it should be.”
Bake like experts with a boxed mix
When it comes to making a yellow Betty Crocker cake, these experts say the package directions are pretty accurate, but they will occasionally make changes. “I refine my cake mix by adding some powerhouse ingredients like buttermilk and sour cream,” says Waterson. For her part, Kasavan is a proponent of replacing vegetable oil with melted butter.
Most importantly, she says, “adding a generous teaspoon of pure vanilla extract to the batter is the secret to making boxed cake mix taste like homemade!”
