Our Best Cake Mix Recipes
You'd never guess these recipes started with a box of store-bought cake mix. Browse through this collection of cake mix recipes for quick and easy recipes for cakes, trifles, brownies, cupcakes, cookies, and more!
Shortcut Carrot Sheet Cake
Shortcut Carrot Sheet Cake Recipe
This moist, delicious carrot cake has traditional ingredients like carrot, pineapple, and walnuts, with the addition of toasted coconut flakes to dress up cream cheese icing. The ease of assembly is the kicker here: a box mix enhanced with fresh ingredients comes together in minutes and is sure to impress guests.
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Mile-High White Chocolate Hummingbird Cake
Mile-High White Chocolate Hummingbird Cake Recipe
First printed in 1978, the Hummingbird Cake remains the most-requested Southern Living recipe of all time. The origin of the name is unknown, but its signature ingredients—mashed banana, pineapple, coconut and pecans—assure its continued popularity. Eight layers and a spoon-licking white chocolate-cream cheese frosting make this updated version more spectacular than the original. But it's easy as can be because of convenience products such as cake mix, instant pudding mix, and canned pineapple.
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How to Make an Easy Lemon-Blueberry Cake from a Box
Dress up a boxed cake by creating a simple filling using lemon juice and blueberries.
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How to Make a Show-Stopping Pumpkin Cake from a Box
This show-stopping fall treat starts with a boxed pumpkin cake that's soaked in a pumpkin spice latte and decorated with pumpkin-flavored cinnamon rolls and cookies.
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Cheesecake-Stuffed Dark Chocolate Cake
Cheesecake-Stuffed Dark Chocolate Cake Recipe
Start with a package of devil's food cake mix for this decadent layer cake that's filled with chopped frozen cheesecake bites and chocolate candy bars. The over-the-top cream cheese frosting is drenched with dulce de leche caramel sauce and topped with chocolate cookies.
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Chocolate-Caramel Angel Food Cake
Chocolate-Caramel Angel Food Cake Recipe
Start with an angel food cake mix and dress up the cake with double drizzles of chocolate and caramel sauce.
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Chocolate Chocolate-Chip Cake
Chocolate Chocolate-Chip Cake Recipe
To bake this double-chocolate cake, start off with a box of German chocolate cake mix and instant chocolate pudding mix.
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Easter Basket Cake
If you've got frosting skills, whip up an Easter cake that'll knock everyone out of the park. The secret's all in the technique: Instead of preparing a complicated cake, you're simply building things up with a frosting-based basket weave. To make this cake, you'll need two round cake layers with an 8-inch diameter, so use a reliable box mix or your favorite spring cake recipe.
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Easy Chocolate Christmas Cake from a Box
Easy Chocolate Christmas Cake from a Box Recipe
No one will ever have to know this show-stopping Christmas cake started with a box of chocolate cake mix!
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Speckled Egg Nest Cake
Make an Easter cake that everyone will love with our simple and speedy decorating technique that's just as impressive as it is easy. You'll need two round cake layers with an 8-inch diameter, so use a box mix or your favorite chocolate cake recipe.
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Carrot-Apple Spice Cake with Browned-Butter Glaze
Carrot-Apple Spice Cake with Browned-Butter Glaze Recipe
This showstopping dessert uses a box of spice cake mix as a starting point.
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Carrot Easter Cake
It’s not Easter without a themed cake! Rather than deal with a fussy animal-shaped pan, bake two round cake layers with an 8-inch diameter and let a little food styling and frosting do the work. You can use a box cake mix make a favorite recipe from scratch, depending on the level of effort you want to put in. This method can also be used for the Easter Egg Cake and Easter Bunny Cake.
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Easter Egg Cake
It’s not Easter without a themed cake! Rather than deal with a fussy animal-shaped pan, bake two round cake layers with an 8-inch diameter and let a little food styling and frosting do the work. You can use a box cake mix make a favorite recipe from scratch, depending on the level of effort you want to put in. This method can also be used for the Carrot Easter Cake and Easter Bunny Cake.
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Easter Bunny Cake
It’s not Easter without a themed cake! Rather than deal with a fussy animal-shaped pan, bake two round cake layers with an 8-inch diameter and let a little food styling and frosting do the work. You can use a box cake mix make a favorite recipe from scratch, depending on the level of effort you want to put in. This method can also be used for the Carrot Easter Cake and Easter Egg Cake.
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Chocolate “Chip” Cake
This salty-sweet treat is an easy but awesome way to upgrade a boxed cake mix and store-bought frosting. Just remember—you’ll want to serve this decadent cake within an hour of frosting it so that the chips stay nice and crispy.
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Pumpkin Pound Cake with Buttermilk Glaze
Pumpkin Pound Cake with Buttermilk Glaze Recipe
If you’re looking for the perfect fall dessert, let the hunt stop here. This incredibly moist pumpkin pound cake is one of our favorite cakes of all time. Perfect for any fall festivities—Halloween, Thanksgiving, and beyond—this easy pumpkin cake delivers just the right amount of spice, balanced by the rich tang of buttermilk (in the mouthwatering glaze and the cake itself). A few smart swaps keep this tasty seasonal treat a bit lighter than a traditional pound cake, but you’re not likely to notice enjoying its perfectly sweet flavor and rich texture. Note: Draining the canned pumpkin before mixing it into your batter keeps you from adding too much liquid to the cake, so don't skip on this step.
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Basic White Cupcakes
Enhance a white cake mix with buttermilk, butter and flavoring extracts for this basic white cupcake. Then add whatever frosting and topping you are in in the mood for. We went for Coconut Buttercream and flaked coconut for these stunning Coconut Cupcakes.
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Sugar-and-Spice Cake
Make a classic white cake for Christmas or Easter this year. This cake starts with boxed mix, then adds a few key ingredients to make the end result light, fluffy, and totally delicious.
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Mountain Dew Cupcakes
Incorporating lemon-lime soda into your batter gives these cupcakes a delightfully light and airy texture, while reducing Mountain Dew into a syrup produces the perfect pop of flavor to mix into prepared vanilla icing. Whether you’re a hardcore Mountain Dew fan or just happen to have part of a leftover 2-liter that needs to be used up, these soda-inspired cupcakes are a fun and easy treat to whip up with a box caked mix.
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Zodiac Cake
Create this stellar constellation-inspired Zodiac Cake using boxed cake mix, and just a little craftiness. The colorful astrological layer cake is fun to assemble and decorate, and would make for an awesome birthday centerpiece.
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Pumpkin Spice Latte Cupcakes
Pumpkin Spice Latte Cupcakes Recipe
Loaded with toasty fall flavors, a batch of these easy PSL cupcakes will have you in sweater weather mode faster than hitting the Starbucks drive-thru.
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Peanut Butter Cup Cupcakes
Peanut Butter Cup Cupcakes RecipeChocolate and peanut butter—the perfect pairing. The generous swirl of Peanut Butter Frosting and luscious filling of Chocolate Ganache make this cupcake an irresistible chocolate treat.
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Snowy Chocolate Baby Cakes
Snowy Chocolate Baby Cakes Recipe
Make these mini chocolate cakes by starting with a devils' food cake mix and baking in muffin pans. The festive holly garnish is simply red cinnamon candies and fresh bay leaves.
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Skittles Rainbow Cake
Cake the rainbow.
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Easter Basket Cake
Gather the kids around the kitchen table to decorate an Easter basket cake that’s as fun to make as it is to show off to guests. Pirouette wafer cookies line the sides of the cake to create a basket effect, while colored coconut flakes mimic the vibrant, lush “grass.” With the help of convenience items like store-bought cake mixes and frosting, you cut down on your prep time to leave you with more time for the fun part: arranging the final fixings on your layered cake. For the layers, use whatever flavor of cake you like best; we opted for two layers of carrot cake and two layers of yellow cake. This flexible Easter cake recipe gives you complete creative freedom to dream up the ultimate Easter wonderland.
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Watercolor Cake
This stunning watercolor effect is a surprisingly simple cake decorating technique that makes for an incredibly special dessert.
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Pumpkin Dump Cake
Pumpkin pie and coffee cake's best features unite in this easy dump cake that's perfect for a crowd.
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Layered Peppermint Cheesecake
Layered Peppermint Cheesecake Recipe
The white cake mix is hidden in the sour cream layers of this layered cheesecake.
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Margarita Cake
It’s everyone’s favorite refreshing tequila cocktail… in cake form. Truly, what could be better? With tart lime curd and tequila syrup, this festive show-stopper cake does justice to the flavors of an authentic margarita.
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Sweet Potato Dump Cake
All the fall flavors you could possibly want in one simple dessert.
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Graveyard Cake
Halloween desserts definitely call for having a little extra fun in the kitchen. This kinda-cute, kinda-creepy Graveyard Cake is easy to make, fun to decorate (so recruit the kids’ help), and is sure to be a perfectly spooky centerpiece for any Halloween dessert table. Black icing transforms store-bought cookies into perfectly-sized miniature headstones for the chocolate-frosted graveyard cake. And once you’ve placed your headstones, crumble chocolate wafer cookies around each to create “dirt.” Just be sure to make each "gravesite" the serving size you want to ensure easy slicing. Disperse a few candle “lanterns” throughout the chocolaty graveyard and you have the perfect cake for a Halloween birthday party. The classic chocolate cake recipe here is decadent and moist standby, but if you’re in a pinch for time, feel free to use your favorite boxed cake mix instead. Obviously, it’s all about the decorating on for this Halloween-inspired treat.
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Mocha Torte
To make this coffee-flavorted dessert, start off with a box of devil's food cake mix with pudding.
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Raspberry-Mocha Cake
Nothing brings out rich chocolate flavor like a hint of fruity raspberry flavor. This cake calls for a few store-bought shortcuts, including chocolate cake mix.
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Black Forest Trifle
Make a reduced-sugar trifle using sugar-free chocolate cake, sugar-free pudding, frozen cherries, and whipped topping.
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Cheesecake-Stuffed Luscious Lemon Cake
Cheesecake-Stuffed Luscious Lemon Cake Recipe
Tantalize dinner guests and party-goers alike with this ultra-decadent layered lemon cake that starts with a cake mix and is filled with chopped frozen cheesecake and white chocolate and topped with lemon curd and berries.
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Easy Black Forest Cake
Devil's food cake layers enriched with milk chocolate and a trio of extracts are sandwiched with the simplest and most decadent stuffing of them all--ready-to-eat cheesecake filling and cherry pie filling. Capped off with fudge frosting and gooey chocolate-covered cherries, it's a cinch to wow your guests.
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New-Fashioned Blackberry Chocolate Spice Cake
New-Fashioned Blackberry Chocolate Spice Cake Recipe
Chocolate and spices mingle with sweet blackberries under a robe of chocolate fudge icing drizzled with blackberry sauce. Even grandmothers would be pleased with this updated classic cake using devil's food cake mix.
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Fortnite Cake
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Chocolate Turtle Cake
Devil's food cake mix with pudding plus chocolate morsels result in brownie-like layers filled and frosted with a jazzed up ready-to-spread fudge frosting.
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Better Than Sex Cake
Chocolate, caramel, and Heath candy take chocolate cake to a whole new level.
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Gingerbread Cake With Stout Buttercream
Gingerbread Cake With Stout Buttercream Recipe
Gingerbread cake mix and 2 bottles of stout beer are the secret ingredients to this 5-ingredient cake.
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Blond Texas Sheet Cake
This spin on the beloved chocolate Texas Sheet Cake is made with white cake mix and 5 more ingredients.
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Chocolate Almond Cupcakes
Chocolate Almond Cupcakes Recipe
These rich chocolate cupcakes start from a package of cake mix and get a triple hit of almond flavor from almond paste, sliced almonds, and almond extract in the glaze.
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Caramel-Pecan Oatmeal Bars
Caramel-Pecan Oatmeal Bars Recipe
Make these breakfast bars with yellow cake mix, pecans, quick-cooking oats, butter, chocolate morsels, caramels, and water.
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Fudgy Chocolate Tiramisu Cake
Fudgy Chocolate Tiramisu Cake Recipe
Start off with a package of chocolate molten lava cake mix to prepare this fudgy cake.
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Orange Marmalade-Ricotta Cupcakes with Marmalade Buttercream Frosting
Orange Marmalade-Ricotta Cupcakes with Marmalade Buttercream Frosting Recipe
Add richness and flavor to cake mix cupcakes by stirring ricotta cheese, and onge juice, and orange marmalade into the batter. Top the cupcakes with a buttercream frosting flavored with orange marmalade.
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Rum Cake
Keep this classic rum cake made with yellow cake mix in your arsenal for special occasions or no occasion at all!
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Cupcakes With Browned Butter Frosting
Cupcakes With Browned Butter Frosting Recipe
This cupcake recipe is a time-saving desset dream. It starts with boxed pound cake mix and calls for only five ingredients, including what you need for the Browned Butter Frosting.
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Pumpkin Crisp
Moist cake, sweet pumpkin, and crunchy pecans—what's not to love?
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Triple-Chocolate Coffee Cake
Triple-Chocolate Coffee Cake Recipe
Gone are the days of crumbled coffee cakes. Use devil's food cake mix to prepare this to-die-for triple-chocolate coffee cake.
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Banana Nut Bread
Whip up Banana Nut Bread in no time with this quick and easy recipe using yellow cake mix.
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Apricot-Almond Coffee Cake
Apricot-Almond Coffee Cake Recipe
This coffee cake uses pound cake mix. Enjoy as a breakfast treat or for dessert!
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Cranberry Gingerbread Cookies
Cranberry Gingerbread Cookies Recipe
Two of holiday's finest flavors—gingerbread and cranberry—meet in these easy-to make cookies that start with a box of gingerbread cake mix.
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Secret-Ingredient Devil's Food Cupcakes
Secret-Ingredient Devil's Food Cupcakes Recipe
The secret ingredients to these cupcakes include devil's food cake mix, mayonnaise, sour cream, eggs, water, vanilla, and chocolate chips.
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Lemon Dome
This lemon-flavored dessert calls for yellow cake mix and 5 more ingredients.
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Coconut Sheet Cake
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Apricot Trifle
This tasty trifle is made with a box of yellow cake mix, dried apricots, sweet wine, and more.
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Walnut Coffee Cake
Use yellow cake mix to bake a loaf of this coffee cake.
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Chocolate Frosted Cupcakes
Chocolate Frosted Cupcakes Recipe
All you need for this recipe is yellow cake mix, eggs, vegetable oil, and chocolate frosting!
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Triple-Decker Strawberry Cake
Triple-Decker Strawberry Cake Recipe
This three-layer strawberry cake gets its delicious flavor from chopped fresh strawberries and strawberry gelatin. Slather with the homemade strawberry buttercream frosting for a rich cake that's truly out of this world.
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Lemonade Cupcakes
Add easy lemon flavor to basic white cupcakes by stirring frozen lemonade concentrate into the white cake mix batter.
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Blackberry-Raspberry Truffle Cake
Blackberry-Raspberry Truffle Cake Recipe
This top-rated cake recipe starts with boxed cake mix, making it a holiday-friendly cake for times when every minute counts.
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Easy Red Velvet Cupcakes
Easy Red Velvet Cupcakes Recipe
Try this red velvet cupcake recipe using yellow cake mix at your next party for an easy and delicious dessert.
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Sour Cream Pound Cake With Raspberry Sauce
Sour Cream Pound Cake With Raspberry Sauce Recipe
This pound cake recipe uses reduced-fat yellow cake mix and fat-free sour cream.
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Cinnamon Swirl Cake
Sprinkling white cake batter with a brown sugar, pecan, and cinnamon mixture adds a cinnamon swirl to this cake.
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Light 'n' Creamy Chocolate Cake Roll
Light 'n' Creamy Chocolate Cake Roll Recipe
This delightful cake roll is made with angel food cake mix and filled with a creamy, chocolaty filling.
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Cinnamon Breakfast Rolls
Cinnamon Breakfast Rolls Recipe
French vanilla cake mix contributes to the dough of these sweet breakfast treats.
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Cake Mix Cookies
The cake mix in this recipe adds a unique touch to these cookies, making them taste similar to brownies.
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Ooey-Gooey Peanut Butter-Chocolate Brownies
Ooey-Gooey Peanut Butter-Chocolate Brownies Recipe
These over-the-top brownies start with devil's food cake mix and a few common pantry items and still make your home smell amazing while they bake.
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Mocha-Chocolate Trifle
A half cup of Kahlúa gives this mocha-chocolate trifle a kick. Chocolate lovers will appreciate this dessert that's lighter in calories but big on taste. Don't skip the toffee, you'll want that crunch!
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Easy Chocolate-Caramel Brownies
Easy Chocolate-Caramel Brownies Recipe
To prepare these brownies, use devil's food cake mix with pudding.
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Chocolate-Peanut Butter Mousse Cake
Chocolate-Peanut Butter Mousse Cake Recipe
This recipe is great because you can make either a cake or 8 parfaits. The peanut butter mousse filling in the cake really makes it rich and unique.
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Red Velvet Bars
Top these Red Velvet Bars made with red velvet cake mix with whipped topping and pecans for a decadent treat that no one will be able to refuse.
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Snickerdoodle Cupcakes
Make Snickerdoodle Cupcakes with a box of white cake mix for a sweet cinnamon treat that the adults will love as much as the kids.