Easy Ways to Hack Dessert Box Cake Mix
Here are several easy ways to hack dessert box cake mix. Add one more ingredient to boxed mix to make it taste more like handmade. Then go even farther and make brownies, cookies, banana bread, dump cakes, and more! Pick your favorite flavor, and we’ll show you how to prepare cake that tastes like it came from your own kitchen.
There are a lot of tricks for boxed cake mix recipes, and we have a lot of them to share with you. When you don’t have much time, the best thing to do is to turn a boxed mix into different treats. Using fresh fruit or canned fruit adds moisture and flavor, and you wouldn’t realize it wasn’t made at home. (links to affiliates are there)
You can make your own yellow cake mix at home, but boxed yellow cake mix is a mix of dry ingredients that are already made and may be used to make many kinds of sweets. It usually has flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in it, as well as oil, eggs, and flavorings.
To make a yellow cake with a cake mix, you usually put the powder from the bag into a bowl with the other ingredients indicated on the package. The box usually says to use eggs, oil, and water. After that, just mix everything together until you have a batter.
Then, following the package directions, this is put into a cake pan and baked in the oven. Making small batches of cupcakes, 9×13″ cakes, or 1/2 sheet cakes at home has been easy and convenient because you don’t have to measure out all the ingredients yourself. THEN come the changes that make the cake mix taste better!!
You’re missing out if you’ve only looked at the back of the box and utilized what the recipe says to use. Make certain changes to our Sock it to Me Cake Recipe with Cake Mix recipe, and the cake will be much moister. First, try these. Then, below, I have a lot of alternative options, like adding a box of pudding mix, fresh fruit, and more.
How to Make a Pudding Cake
There are a lot of methods to do this, which I will discuss below, but the easiest and biggest change you can make is to bake a pudding cake.
You are correct; you add a full box of dry Jello pudding to the mix. That makes it like a dense, moist cake with a dense dampness that you can’t get any other way. A cheap change that lets you mix and match a lot of flavors.
Most of these will use the same ingredients as the ones on the back, but they’ll also add something extra. You can change the mix itself into something else, like boxed cake mix banana bread, but right now we’re talking about the 9×13 cake itself.
You can make the chocolate or white cake mix richer and moister by adding an extra egg or egg yolk.
That’s it! Try this and let me know what you think. Use the same ingredients as on the back of the package, but add one more yolk and taste it. Just break the whole thing in there if you don’t want to separate it. will make it taste more like it was made at home than it would without the extra egg. 😉
Other Simple Mix Hacks
- Instead of water, use milk or sour cream. If you can’t take lactose, you might also use a dairy-free option. This might make the strawberry or chocolate cake mix taste better and richer.
- Add vanilla essence to baked items to make them taste better. Other tastes work well too, like making a coconut cake flavor using that extract!
- Use melted butter instead of oil. This change might give the cake a rich, buttery taste.
- To make the cake mix taste and feel better, add things like 1/2 cup of micro chocolate chips, chopped almonds, or dried fruit.
- Put some homemade icing on top. You might also try creating your own frosting instead of buying it from the shop. This will provide more sweetness and wetness.
You can also use the dry mix to make a shortbread pie crust with curd on top, like we did with our lemon bars with cake mix.
Frosting works the same way as ice cream on top, but many like it better in the summer. When you put it on a heated piece, it will melt into the baked items, making them softer and sweeter. Want a little zing too? Add some fresh lemon zest on top of it!
Cake Mix Hack Recipe by Justine
Use this box cake mix hack to make Betty Crocker or Duncan Hines yellow, white, or chocolate mix taste more like homemade bakery food: moist, soft, and superior.
Time to get ready: 10 minutes
Time to cook: 30 minutes
Yield: 24 servings
Tools & Ingredients
- 1 pan 9×13
- 1 package of cake mix
- 1 cup milk, whole milk will make it the most moist, and it can be used instead of water.
- 4 eggs are needed; 3 eggs and an extra egg or just an extra yolk will make it moister.
- 1/2 cup butter, melted, is an oil substitute you can prepare.
Instructions
- Put the dry mix in a bowl with the other three things on the list. You can use one or all of the things on the back of the box as alternatives. Use a hand mixer on low to mix in the dry mix, or whisk it in with your hand until it is well mixed in.
- Set the oven to 350 F. Spray the inside of a 9×13″ pan, pour in the batter, and bake for about 30 minutes, or until the middle bounces back when you touch it gently with your finger.
You may also add a box of dry Jello pudding mix (as is, not cooked into pudding beforehand). This will make the end result flatter and denser, but it will be very, very moist. You can also add 1/2 cup of micro chocolate chips.
Let the cake cool fully, then add homemade frosting or a jar of frosting to the top to make it wetter. You could also let it cool for 20 minutes, poke holes in the top with a big straw, melt a tub of frosting, and pour it all over the top so it soaks into the cake. If you use a carton of pudding and this melted frosting combined, it will be extremely sweet.
Nutrition Information
2 ounces, 130 calories, 18 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of protein, 5 grams of fat, 3 grams of saturated fat, 0.3 grams of polyunsaturated fat, 1 gram of monounsaturated fat, 0.2 grams of trans fat, 39 milligrams of cholesterol, 202 milligrams of sodium, 37 milligrams of potassium, 0.3 grams of fiber, 10 grams of sugar, 174 IU of vitamin A, 63 milligrams of calcium, and 1 milligram of iron.
Other Delicious Cake Mix Recipe Ideas
It’s easy to make Pineapple Upside-Down Cake with cake mix. Put a can of crushed pineapple and some brown sugar in a bowl and mix them together. Then, pour the mixture into the bottom of a prepared cake pan. Put the yellow cake mix on top of the pineapple mixture and bake it according to the directions on the package. After baking, turn the cake over so that the pineapple is on top.
To make yellow cake mix cookies, mix together a box of yellow cake mix, two eggs, and 1/3 cup of oil. Add in your favorite extras, such nuts, chocolate chips, or M&Ms. Put spoonfuls of the dough on a greased baking sheet and bake for 10 to 12 minutes at 350°F.
Peach Cobbler with Yellow Cake Mix: Put a can of peaches (with syrup) into a baking dish. Put the yellow cake mix on top of the peaches, and then pour the melted butter over the cake mix. Put in the oven at 350°F for 45 minutes.
Brownies made using cake mix (see link above): Combine one box of Betty Crocker Devil’s Food with melted butter and two eggs until a dough forms.
Put the dough on a greased baking dish and bake it for about 20 minutes at 350 F. Cut the brownies into squares and serve them after they have cooled.
Lemon Bars: These are like making our pink cake mix cookies, except instead of drops of dough, you put lemon curd on top and bake them in a 9×9 pan.
Adding canned fruit is another fantastic technique to make it wetter and give the insides a little bit of texture. It’s a certainty that there will be different frostings, but what you put inside is the most important thing. Want a stronger flavor? Add peanut butter too! We have cupcakes in jars that are perfect for one person.
It’s not really cake, but it’s a sweet bread that you may use yellow cake mix to make banana bread easily. I really do make this all the time when I have ripe fruit on the counter that I don’t want to throw away. They make this breakfast or dessert in a loaf pan taste really sweet.
Our peach or apple cobbler with cake mix combination is more of a “dump and go” dessert. Just cut up the fresh fruit and you’re ready to go. A fantastic recipe to use after collecting apples or if you find a good deal on Granny Smith green apples.
These are just a few simple cake mix recipes that will make yellow cake mix (or any other flavor) taste more like it was cooked from scratch. There is more than just a 9×13″ size. There are so many options!
This is a picture of the back of a Duncan Hines box. Most brands are going to tell you to add the same items. If yours reads 1/3 cup oil instead of 1/2, use that amount but switch to melted butter, and so on.
You can and should keep the cake on the counter if you don’t add a cream layer in the middle or icing to the top. If you add fruit or dairy products like icing on the top, you will need to keep it cold. Otherwise, it will dry out.
Wait till it has cooled all the way down first. Then cover it with plastic wrap. If it’s on a plate, touch the sides and seal them so that as little air as possible gets inside.
To warm up leftover cake and keep it soft instead of dry, you should add some kind of moisture to the top. A tablespoon of whipped cream, buttercream, ice cream, or syrup will do. Then, put it in the microwave for 45 seconds to reheat it up.