5 Cake Mix Baking Secrets

Today I'm going to share with you 5 cake mix baking secrets or Cake Mix Hacks that will help you turn an ordinary box mix into a delicious dessert your family will think came from a bakery!

You can always find a box of cake mix in my pantry. In fact I included them as part of my 10 Essentials Pantry Items Printable.

These are easy tips that will help you bake a delicious dessert that uses an ordinary box of cake mix as an ingredient in a recipe. 

Each recipe is sure to get rave reviews from your family and take your baking to the next level. No one will know that amazing dessert they’re enjoying started out with a box of cake mix. 

Make sure you grab the FREE printable below to help you remember all these yummy secrets!

Table of Contents

• 🛒Helpful Kitchen Tools
• 💭Add Baking Powder to the Cake Mix
• 💭Replace the Oil with Butter
• 💭Use Cake Mix as a Crumb Topping
• 💭Add extra moisture to the batter
• 💭Serve an ordinary cake mix with a Homemade Frosting
• 💡Ready to put these secrets into action?
• 💬 Comments

🛒Helpful Kitchen Tools

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💭Add Baking Powder to the Cake Mix

Our very first cake mix baking secrets is easy! The next time you’re using a cake mix for any recipe, add half a teaspoon to a full teaspoon of baking powder to the cake mix. 

If you’re like me, you tend to purchase boxes of cake mixes when they’re on sale. 

Adding the teaspoon of baking powder to the mix helps boost the freshness of the cake mix. Because, let’s be honest, sometimes we have cake mixes sitting in our pantry for a long time. Or maybe it’s just in my house? 

I add an extra teaspoon of baking powder to the batter for my Chocolate Chunk Muffins recipe.

💭Replace the Oil with Butter

Next time you bake a cake using a box mix, try using melted butter in place of the oil in a 1-to-1 substitution. Your cake will have a delicious buttery flavor!

💭Use Cake Mix as a Crumb Topping

Do you love fruit crisps as much as I do? Did you know that by simply cutting butter into a cake mix creates a sweet, crumb topping streusel to sprinkle over coffee cakes, muffins or fruit desserts just before baking.

I think my favorite cake mix baking secrets is to use cake mix as a crumb topping when making fruit desserts like my recipes for Peach Dump Cake, and Blueberry Lemon Dump Cake. There's even a recipe for Pumpkin Apple Dump Cake that's slowly becoming one of my favorites!

💭Add extra moisture to the batter

Another way to make boxed cake more delicious is to help add moisture to the batter by adding one of the following to the dry cake mix: 

• Sour Cream - add anywhere from ¾ cup to one full cup of full fat sour cream when baking. I add sour cream to the batter for my Marble Bundt Cake Recipe!
• Cream Cheese - you can add 2 ounces of softened cream cheese. 
• Mayonnaise - yes, as strange as this sounds, adding up to two tablespoons of full fat mayonnaise will add moisture to a cake mix batter.
• Eggs - add an extra egg to the cake batter.  

💭Serve an ordinary cake mix with a Homemade Frosting

Our final tip is to ditch the canned frosting you usually reach for when baking a boxed cake mix and instead make homemade frosting! 

This really does make any ordinary cake mix recipe taste homemade or even from a bakery. It really does make all the difference in the world.

A few of my favorite homemade frosting recipes already on the blog are:

• Homemade Chocolate Frosting
• Coconut Pecan Frosting
• Homemade Chocolate Ganache
• Easy Homemade Cream Cheese Frosting

💡Ready to put these secrets into action?

Here are a few of my favorite desserts that all start out with a cake mix:

• German Chocolate Cake with Coconut Pecan Frosting
• Red Velvet Sandwich Cookies
• Marble Bundt Cake
• Peach Crunch Cake

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