The Best Strawberry Cake Mix You Can Buy Comes From A Familiar Favorite

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A strawberry spoon cake recipe will take at least 30 minutes of your time to bake from scratch, but a store-bought mix can help you carry a dessert to the table with significantly less hassle. One of our Tasting Table writers sampled and ranked 5 box strawberry cake mixes so you know exactly which product to place into your shopping cart during your next market run. Coming out on top was Pillsbury Moist Supreme Strawberry Cake Mix, a recipe that offered everything that was promised on the package. Our writer discovered that cupcakes made with this product were spongy and soft, and each moist bite offered a recognizable taste of strawberry. The crumb structure was light, and the taste is exactly what you want to offer to guests during your next party. 

Other taste testers have agreed that this is a purchase worth repeating. Pleased Amazon shoppers have topped strawberry cupcakes with sweet butter cream and have described the product as "heaven." Redditors have encouraged lovers of store-bought strawberry cake mix to use the ingredient to make cookies. In addition to reviewers gushing over the texture and taste of the easy-to-make boxed product, an added benefit is the smell that will fill your home while baking.

While some have noted an artificial flavor associated with Pillsbury's strawberry cake mix, others insist that this taste is exactly what is delightful about the ingredient. To adjust the overall taste profile, home bakers have crowned baked cakes with strawberry pie filling or stirred strawberry gelatin into the cake mix before baking. Pulverizing dehydrated strawberries in a food processor and mixing the powder into batter can punch up the color for those wanting a brighter pink hue displayed in their final creations.

Boxed cake mixes can always be tweaked by swapping ingredients, like substituting water for milk or a milk substitute, bulking up batter with extra eggs, or adding ingredients like extracts and mix-ins like berries, nuts, or chocolate chips. And the frosting you use to coat finished pieces can result in treats that might be mistaken for homemade recipes.

In addition to using the mix to make pretty cake pops and baked goods, Pillsbury's powdery ingredient can be incorporated into recipes to make strawberry waffles, blended with vanilla ice cream and milk to pour milkshakes, or folded into dough to serve pink cinnamon rolls. This is a buy that will go the mile.