I Asked 4 Bakers To Name the Best Yellow Cake Mix, and They All Said the Same Brand

Buttercream-frosted yellow cake is one of life’s greatest pleasures. There’s a reason why we use cake to celebrate birthdays—it’s joyous, delicious, and can be full of flavorful surprises! The universality of cake doesn’t mean it’s effortless to make, though. 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 being honest, I like the taste of a good boxed cake mix for my yellow cake. Not all yellow cake mixes are created equal, though. I’ve had my fair share of yellow cake that turned out too sweet, or worse, synthetic-tasting.

With yellow cake requested for an upcoming family birthday, I thought, What better way to find the best boxed mix than by asking the experts? I reached out to four bakers, and there’s one brand they all recommend: Betty Crocker.

The Cake Mix Experts

• Ashley D’Acunto: Owner of Phat Ash Bakes, a bakery in Orlando
• Elizabeth Waterson: Founder of baking blog Confessions of a Baking Queen
• Laura Kasavan: Recipe developer and creator of baking blog Tutti Dolci
• Lisa Kaminski: Former Taste of Home editor, food writer, and founder of lifestyle blog Cabin in the City 

The Boxed Mix That Takes the Cake

“Betty Crocker Super Moist Yellow Cake Mix mix for the win!” exclaims D’Acunto. “It’s always consistent and always fluffy.” Waterson backs D’Acunto up. “After testing many of the boxed cake mixes on the market, I can confidently say that the taste and texture of Betty Crocker is the best.”

Clearly, consistency is key, and Betty's got it. But what else about this brand do the cake-loving experts like? It’s a favorite, says Kasavan, because “it's unbelievably tender, moist, and has that nice nostalgic flavor that you look for in yellow cake."

That nostalgia she’s talking about is also important to Kaminski. “When you close your eyes and envision yellow cake," she says, "the smell, the fluffy-meets-soft sponge texture, the vaguely buttery flavor, this cake is it. ”

When it comes to texture, “some yellow cake mixes can yield a doughy, heavier, more dense cake, but not Betty Crocker’s,” says D’Acunto. “This one has a naturally rich and dense consistency and is light and fluffy.”

Kasavan explains that Betty achieves this perfect texture in part because the box contains pudding in the mix. "That pudding is the reason the cake bakes up extra soft, moist, and even," she says. "The result is a cake with a very consistent crumb.”

Betty Crocker’s also the favorite because of its sweetness level (or lack thereof). “So many other yellow cake batters are just way too sweet,” D’Acunto says. “Betty Crocker has mastered the balance of sweetness and flavor.”

Or, as Kaminski so perfectly puts it: “It's just plain good, as yellow cake is intended to be.”

How Experts Bake With a Boxed Mix

As for how to make a Betty Crocker yellow cake, these experts say the instructions on the box are pretty spot on, but they’ll make occasional tweaks. “I’ll doctor my cake mix up by adding some powerhouse ingredients like buttermilk and sour cream,” says Waterson. Kasavan, for her part, is a proponent of replacing the 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 a boxed cake mix taste homemade!”