Why Funfetti Is The Worst Boxed Strawberry Cake Mix In Stores By Far

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

Funfetti is one iconic dessert every '90s kid remembers — and it lives up to its name to this day, with colorful sprinkles that brighten each bite of moist cake. The sprinkles are cheerful visuals and bring a slight crunch to contrast the bouncy cake crumb. Unfortunately, the sprinkles are the downfall to Funfetti's boxed strawberry cake mix. Tasting Table's taste tester tried and ranked five strawberry cake mixes according to flavor and texture, and the Funfetti strawberry cake mix was by far the worst.

The sprinkles don't bring anything to the table flavor wise, so they didn't interfere with any of the cake mixes' strawberry flavor. But both the visual and textural appeal that defines Funfetti were lost in Funfetti's strawberry cake mix. While the vibrant pinks, blues, reds, and greens shine through a yellow or white cake crumb, the pink crumb turned these colors into various shades of brown. Plus, there were very few sprinkles unevenly dispersed throughout the mix. A slice of cake had a few random brown splotches all grouped together in one corner, giving the appearance that it was going bad. 

Worse still, these sprinkles had a grainy, dried out texture that felt like biting into uncooked flour pockets. Suffice it to say, Funfetti's strawberry cake mix was no fun at all. If you're looking for a bright strawberry flavor and a moist, spongy cake crumb with no grainy crunch, Pillsbury was the winning brand in our taste test.

Unlike our taste tester's qualms with the sprinkles, most negative reviews complained about the strawberry flavor. One Target customer summed it up in their review, "Flavor was: strong artificial sweetener. Aroma was: strawberry field air freshener." Others have surmised that the chemical taste is the result of the pink food dye, but regardless, the strawberry flavor in Funfetti's strawberry cake mix is completely absent for some. In other Target reviews, one customer said they just "can't get pass the artificial taste" while another customer said it "tasted like someone forgot what strawberry was supposed to taste like." Various customers also mentioned that the batter was either too watery or too thick and yielded less cupcakes than advertised.

There's no denying that a boxed strawberry cake mix will likely have a slightly artificial flavor. That's the nature of the beast with most mixes because of the simple fact that they do, in retrospect, use artificial flavors in order to achieve the strawberry taste. That said, there are ingredients you can use to upgrade boxed cake mix and enhance the strawberry flavor. For example, you could swap the water and some of the oil for melted strawberry ice cream, which would also bring an even pinker hue to the crumb. You can also try swapping the cooking liquid with buttermilk or sour cream to enhance the strawberry flavor with a bit of sour twang. However, neither of these hacks will do anything to save the color or the texture of the Funfetti strawberry cake mix sprinkles themselves.