4 Betty Crocker Cake Mixes To Buy, 5 To Avoid

If you take a walk through the baking aisle at the grocery store, you'll likely see a handful of familiar names: Duncan Hines, Pillsbury, and the darling of the bunch, Betty Crocker. This brand, headed by a fictional woman who eventually became an American culinary and cookbook icon, sells an array of products, ranging from brownie mixes to pie crust, pizza dough, and pancake mixes. However, it's most well-known for its cake mixes, which include classic flavors — such as chocolate, red velvet, and vanilla — as well as more unique ones — such as lemon, strawberry, and butter pecan. 

As a prolific home baker myself, I wanted to see which of Betty Crocker's cake mixes were worth buying and which ones were better off left on the shelf, and whether Betty herself could outdo some of my favorite homemade cake recipes. To put her offerings to the test, I visited my local Walmart, stocked up on an array of boxed cake mix flavors, and prepared them as cupcakes according to the package directions. Once the cupcakes had cooled completely, I tasted them — sans frosting — to assess their consistency, flavor, and overall enjoyability. From there, I made a decision about whether or not I would buy each mix again. 

As a whole, the cake mixes that I really liked boasted soft textures and bold flavors and rivaled the texture of a homemade cake. Those that I would skip were very artificial-tasting, too soft, or just weren't utilitarian enough to justify occupying space in any pantry.

If the idea of a strawberry-flavored sponge is nauseating to you, you might want to skip the Betty Crocker Delights Super Moist strawberry cake mix. However, if you don't mind coloring outside the lines a bit when it comes to cake flavors, it might be a product worth trying.

When I first mixed it in a bowl with the other ingredients, I was a bit unnerved to find that the cake mix itself was white but transformed into a pretty shade of pink when mixed with the oil, water, and eggs. It wasn't as vibrant as the red velvet cake mix, though it was clearly colorful enough to distinguish itself as strawberry-flavored, rather than plain. 

Like the color of its raw mix, this cake was very lightly strawberry-flavored. I don't love strawberry-flavored things, and I was expecting to get whacked over the head with its artificial flavor. However, I was glad to see that it was much more mellow than I expected. The tiny pieces of what looked like real strawberries throughout it made it all the more authentic. It's not as noxious, bold, or powerfully flavored as some of the other strawberry cake mixes I've had, though it does lack the complexity of a cake flavored with real berries or jam. Granted, I don't think that this cake will have the same utility as a high-quality yellow, white, or chocolate cake mix, but if you need to prepare a strawberry sponge in a pinch, it'll fit the bill.

Butter pecan is a weird flavor. It barely works as an ice cream, seeing as it's rife with fake butter essence and flavor notes that are too toasty to be real, so I was curious as to why Betty Crocker would try to make it into a cake mix — especially one that didn't have any pieces of actual pecan in it. The color is a toasty shade of brown and is nice to look at. It would have easily fooled me into thinking it was a spice cake. 

First, the pros: It's a decently structured cake, as it's quite moist and would hold up well to frosting without ripping or breaking into pieces. However, the cons are basically everything else. When I first went in for a bite, I just assumed this was a yellow cake that had gone awry. There was a slightly toasty undertone — like walnuts left in the oven for a few minutes too long — but it was too subtle to make a difference. It wasn't artificially buttery — and for that, I am grateful — but there isn't enough flavor in this sponge to convince me it's supposed to be butter pecan-flavored. 

I'm honestly puzzled as to why Betty Crocker would try to make this cake mix work, seeing as I don't recall anyone ever asking for a butter pecan-flavored birthday cake. Moreover, I don't think that an icing would do it any good, seeing as it would probably just hide its initial toastiness even more.

I would have never bet that Betty Crocker's lemon cake mix would be on my "buy" list. But it appears that this taste test is full of surprises. 

I'll admit I was hesitant to eat this cake, seeing as my house smelled like a bottle of lemon Pledge as I was preparing it. The fake lemon essence perfumed upward from the mixing bowl, and I was almost tempted to plug my nose as I stirred the batter. However, the flavor of the cake itself was much more mild than its aroma let on. Despite the small flecks of what looks like lemon zest in the batter, there is nothing authentic about this mix. If you hate artificial lemon, you won't like it. However, I decided to include it on my "buy" list because ultimately — and in the grand scheme of things — it's not as fake-tasting as it could be. You could also pair it with a very basic buttercream or a cream cheese icing and mellow out that flavor even more.

And before you get your pitchforks out and pay me a visit, I will say that I would not choose this mix over one that's been prepared with fresh lemon juice and lemon zest. That being said, if you are a baker and need to make a lemon cake in a pinch, it's a good buy. It might not have the same utility as some of the other cakes on this list, but it's one that warrants a sample. 

When you think of "chocolate fudge," what do you think of? A heavy, dense, and stick-to-your-ribs cake? If so, you're probably not thinking of this Betty Crocker chocolate fudge cake mix, which is why I would relegate it to the "skip" pile. Its flavor is very mild and unassertive, which is not what I look for when it comes to a cake marketed as anything remotely fudgy. 

Structure-wise, this cake is great. It's not so soft that it would be ripped to shreds if you frosted it, but it's also not so hard that biting into it hurts your teeth. It bakes through well, is very moist, and has a nice springiness to it. However, it lacks the ganache-like, almost creamy texture of a proper chocolate cake. Instead, its flavor is almost cocoa powder-like, rather than fudgy. It lacks fatty depth, and while I think that adding melted butter — perhaps with cocoa powder in it — would help increase its richness, you shouldn't have to doctor a boxed cake mix up that much. My recommendation would just be to buy another high-quality chocolate cake mix brand, like Duncan Hines. 

I don't think that the utility of this cake mix goes away entirely, though. You could pair the cake with a very, very rich frosting so that its flavor would balance out the bite and make it less overwhelming. But if you were just eating it with a store-bought vanilla frosting or an equally mild chocolate one, the dessert as a whole would fall short. 

I'm going to be honest here: I was really on the fence about this red velvet cake mix. It was one of those that I tried, paced around the kitchen a few laps in thought, then tried again. Eventually, though, I was able to decide that this cake mix was a "yes" — not necessarily because of its flavor, but its texture. 

Red velvet cake demands attention in ways that not all other cake flavors do. It arrives at the table, covered with its only possible frosting pairing (a cream cheese one), and everyone at the table always turns to it in awe. The color of this Betty Crocker version certainly demands that attention; it matches the exact hue I was looking for. It's also very, very soft in a way that most red velvet cakes aren't, and that's something I can appreciate (and not just because I tried eight other cupcakes before it). However, even though it's very light and airy, it would hold up well to a thick cream cheese frosting without breaking or tearing — provided it was properly cooled first. 

The flavor of this cake is red velvet-adjacent, but as its texture suggests, it lacks the heaviness that I've come to associate red velvet cake with. A good red velvet cake has discernible buttermilk notes and cocoa undertones, but this one wasn't at all tangy. It was kind of bland but still passable for a red velvet cake. In short, buy this Betty Crocker red velvet cake if you're after texture. But if flavor is your goal, you may be better off looking elsewhere.

I must admit I don't really understand the purpose of white cake. Sure, it looks pretty as a wedding cake, but if you're after flavor, you might as well just get a yellow cake mix. 

This was the only Betty Crocker mix that had instructions for both egg whites and whole eggs. I opted for the latter, though the former would have offered a more "pure" color — and as I came to realize, probably a better bake too. The bake on this Betty Crocker mix was screwy, and I have a feeling it has something to do with the fact that I used the whole egg recipe rather than the egg white-only one. Despite having the same baking directions as the chocolate fudge cake mix, which was baked in the same tin and came out well-baked, the white cake came out almost raw in the center and overbaked on the edges. 

As such, it sank much more than any other cake mix I tested for this ranking. Sure, you can hide it with a ton of frosting, but if you left it naked or made it in a loaf or Bundt tin, you may run into issues. Could the fat from the egg yolks have made a difference in the bake? Possibly, and if so, I'm a little miffed that Betty would include a whole egg version on the boxed instructions if it didn't actually work. 

Flavor-wise, this is a white cake. The vanilla isn't notable, and it doesn't really have much going on besides that fake essence. There are many more exciting Betty Crocker flavors out there worth trying — and ones that offer a far better texture.

I personally really like spice cake and find it to be one of the forgotten mixes of the baking aisle. All of the attention is always on yellow cake or chocolate cake, so much so that it rarely feels like spice cake gets its place in the spotlight. The good news is that if you've been wanting to try out a spice mix — preferably with a thick slab of cream cheese frosting on top — Betty Crocker makes a pretty darn good mix that's worth buying. 

This spice cake was leaps and bounds above the carrot cake, which has a similar flavor profile. It's rife with spices, including the likes of cinnamon and nutmeg, though it's not so spicy that it would be a turnoff to those who really don't like to think too much about their cake flavors. The benefit of using this mix, rather than adding your own spices to a yellow cake, is that everything is pre-measured and perfectly spicy. I could also see repurposing this mix as the base of a coffee cake; it would be extra tasty coupled with a brown-sugar crust and extra cinnamon. 

The texture of this cake is also excellent; it's spongy, soft, and delectably moist. I have few negative things to say about it, which seems to be a first for any of the products in this taste test. Overall, I think it's an approachable cake mix that any baker would be glad to stock in their pantry.

The good news is that while the yellow cake sank a bit in the tin, it wasn't as much of a mess as the white cake; it baked all the way through and was pretty moist overall. The consistency was fluffy, rather than dense, and eating it almost felt like biting through a vanilla-flavored cloud. The color was on par with other yellow cakes that I've had, and I would almost say that it's one of the moister yellow cakes that I've sampled. As such, you may not want to frost it; not only is it sweet enough already, but I fear that if you tried to frost it, you may end up taking half of the cake off with you.

The primary purpose of a cake is to be a vessel for frosting. Sure, you can repurpose cake mixes for other things, like a tasty fruit cobbler, but the lion's share of folks are baking their mix according to the package directions before adding a hefty dose of frosting on top of it. If you can't frost it without it breaking into smithereens, what good is it to you? 

Could you eat this cake plain from the tin? Probably. But it's really not a very flavorful or authentically vanilla cake, which is why I couldn't recommend it to fellow bakers. There are so many other, better cake mixes out there (read: Duncan Hines) that I don't know why anyone would resort to buying this one.

This boxed carrot cake mix worked about as well as you'd think a boxed carrot cake mix would work. Normally, I'm a big fan of carrot cake, not only for the spices but also because the carrots add extra moisture and richness to the sponge and make it especially delicious. The issue with this cake mix, which has seemingly small bits of dehydrated carrot in it, is that there isn't enough moisture there to make a difference. Instead of helping the batter bind together and stay moist for several days after it's baked, the dry, mealy pieces of carrot cause the cake batter to break apart into a crumbly mess. It was the least cohesive out of all of the batters I sampled, and even a single bite out of one of the cupcakes left me absolutely covered in a layer of crumbs. Eat it at your own risk. 

Besides detracting from the texture of the cake, the carrot pieces also didn't do much for the flavor. While carrot cake isn't supposed to taste like biting into a raw carrot and a slice of cake at the same time, there should be at least a slightly sweet flavor present. Instead, this cake tastes exactly like the plain spice cake — just more crumbly. 

My recommendation? Forego this cake mix, grab a box of the plain spice cake mix, and grate in your own carrots (and preferably other veggies too, such as zucchini or beets). You'll get a much better texture and flavor, and your party guests may not even be able to guess that the dessert is made mostly from a box.