9 Betty Crocker Cake Mixes, Ranked

Though from-scratch baking has gained popularity as home bakers take up making sourdough bread and hearty seasonal desserts, the traditional boxed cake mix is still a hands-off way to get a tasty treat with very little effort and ingredients. I, for one, have never been a boxed mix apologizer — the best packaged cake mixes are how I learned to bake brownies and make cakes covered in frosting. The only difficult part about a boxed cake mix is knowing what brand and flavor to pick off the shelf.

Betty Crocker has been sitting on supermarket shelves since 1921. Though the story behind Betty Crocker herself is that she is not necessarily a real person, the name has become an iconic one in the baking aisle — named the best-selling cake mix brand in 2026, beating out brands like Duncan Hines and Pillsbury. As more than a century has passed since the Betty Crocker brand launched, there are tons of different cake mixes to choose from when thinking about your next sweet treat, so it can be difficult to know which flavor to try.

That's why we're here. I tried nine Betty Crocker cake mixes to figure out which are the best based primarily on how well their flavor delivered. Here is how they measured up against each other.

"Party Rainbow Chip" seems to be Betty Crocker's way of saying "Funfetti," which is a trademarked flavor. The mix is speckled with color and immediately smells sweet and syrupy, almost like cake batter ice cream or coffee flavoring. The smell is a bit artificial, but then so is the idea of sprinkles appearing inside a cake.

Like many of Crocker's boxed mixes, this one is labeled "super moist" and said to have pudding in the mix, which is not something I find particularly effective when tasting. I am not sure I would categorize this cake as "super moist" — when completely cooled, the top of the cupcake definitely has a moistness, but the center leans away from that.

The texture of the cupcake is moist enough that it lumps together in your mouth, but dry enough that it might get a little bit stuck, almost like eating a biscuit. Personally, I don't mind the thickness in its texture, but some people might. Overall, this cake is light and airy, similar to classic yellow cake. I can't say the rainbow chips add anything to the flavor or texture, but I could see it being fun for kids to see sprinkles in their cupcake. Party Rainbow Chip is good, but it is not quite a standout.

Admittedly, I did not really understand what "yellow" cake was before I made this cake. But somehow, my taste buds recognized this cake — the mix smelled like cake batter in the classic, delicious way, and the scent of the batter was sweet and nostalgic. Yellow cake is the OG, and making this mix reminded me of that. And even as a girl who loves chocolate flavoring, just the smell of the batter made me excited to eat the cake (plus a little taste-test of the batter didn't hurt).

It is like pound cake, but lighter, fluffier, and sweeter. It is better than the Party Rainbow Chip in its moisture, too. However, while the flavor is traditional, it is not pungent. It would be a good cake to eat to satisfy a sweet tooth without going overboard on sugar. Still, I smell the deliciousness of the cake more than I taste it, which is a bit of a bummer. 

Yellow is one of the mixes where the subtlety in flavor does not do the cake many favors. It was fine initially, but eventually, I got bored with it, which is likely why people use frosting and sprinkles to spruce this one up. It is a reliable plain flavor: good but not great.

The powdery red velvet mixture smells sweet and chocolatey, fueling the debate about the real difference between red velvet cake and chocolate cake. It mixes and bakes up to a bright red color. The cupcakes rose nicely, more so than the Party Rainbow Chip did, and about the same as the devil's food mix did.

The cupcakes had moisture on the bottom, but I would attribute that more to the butter spray I used to grease the pan than to the mix itself. Still, the cake was moist where it mattered: on the interior of the cupcake, which remained light and airy save for a slight heaviness on the back end of the bite — I would attribute that to the cocoa flavor weighing the cupcake down a bit.

This flavor was less sweet than the rainbow chip, and you get a subtle sense of cocoa, which pushes it toward the bitter end, which I enjoyed more than the traditional yellow cake flavor. Besides that slight spark of flavor, though, this one does not taste like much of anything. The flavor is mild, and Betty Crocker's mix stays true to what red velvet is meant to be, which I find respectable. This cake would pair well with a frosting to liven it up a bit, but on its own, it is not necessarily a boxed mix worth purchasing.

As someone whose go-to coffee order is an iced vanilla latte, I was very excited for a vanilla-flavored cake. My excitement only doubled when I opened the Betty Crocker Vanilla Cake Mix and smelled the vanilla aroma. It was clear, sweet, and comforting, but not too obtrusive. It was similar to the classic yellow cake, but it definitely gave a little extra oomph that I welcomed.

Though the flavor was the most solid of the flavors listed here so far, there were two setbacks of the vanilla mix. First, there is a slight syrupy aftertaste that comes on the end of the bite, but it does not completely mask the cake's flavor. I think the cake is still enjoyable, and I could even see the aftertaste pairing well with a frosting or sprinkles to really lean into its saccharinity. Second, this cake is particularly dry internally. This is not a complete dealbreaker, but — especially given the "super moist" label on the box — it's noticeable. All in all, though, the vanilla flavor is basic but enjoyable and would be another good cake foundation to build on.

The mixed Oreo batter may have been the least appetizing to look at, but it was the most fun to make, probably because it had two elements: the white powder mix and a separate bag with crushed Oreo cookies to mix in later. The resulting batter smelled like cookies and cream ice cream, and the cupcake was moister than the red velvet and the devil's food flavors. 

In this mix, the Betty Crocker brand pretty much nails the flavor. It tastes just like cookies and cream, which is what Oreo is meant to taste like, though there is perpetually an online debate as to whether there is a difference between Oreo and cookies and cream. Plainly, this cupcake is yummy. I could see it satisfying a craving for chocolate without being overly rich, if too much richness isn't your thing when it comes to chocolate (I don't relate). 

The added cookie pieces into the batter are fun — especially when baking with children — but I do not think they add much to the texture of the cupcake. In the oven, it all sort of melds together anyway, meaning the cookies don't crunch like they would straight out of the container. The texture difference from the other cupcakes is only slight.

Now, I have never been a fan of strawberry flavoring. I think oftentimes, strawberry flavoring leans too artificial and ends up tasting overly saccharine and sticky. I was worried when I mixed the ingredients for this cake, and it turned a shade of pink close to Pepto Bismol. But Betty Crocker has never led us astray, has she?

The mix itself has a very subtle strawberry smell, and I think this is true of all of the Betty Crocker mixes — the flavors come in subtly, not in an overpowering way. The cake ends up tasting like strawberry shortcake, with a hint of the yellow cake flavor on the back end. 

Of all the cakes, the strawberry flavor held its moisture most. It was soft and airy and a bit wet in the way you want a cake to be. The cake ends up being refreshing and light because the strawberry flavor is contained. As of now, I will consider myself a fan of strawberry flavor — thanks to Betty Crocker, I have broadened my horizons. This strawberry is a classic flavor done well.

I was most excited to try the Devil's Food Betty Crocker Cake Mix. The difference between devil's food cake and chocolate cake is that the former is usually richer and more intense with cocoa flavor than traditional chocolate cake — that is right up my alley. Though I may be slightly biased, this one did not take the top slot because it had some shortcomings.

When baked, the cupcakes smelled prominently of cocoa, but the cocoa flavor on my palate was calm and subtle, not as rich as the smell made it seem (or as you would expect from devil's food cake). This cupcake tasted fairly similar to the red velvet cake, though this flavor was more direct and to the point. This was one of the driest cupcakes, however, and I would recommend pairing it with a frosting, which is rare for a devil's food cake. It also leans more bitter than sweet, likely due to the cocoa powder. It was just fine, which was disappointing, but I personally would still come back to it before some of the other mixes on this list.

The Betty Crocker Carrot Cake Mix — which ranked fifth in our carrot cake taste-test — is speckled with orange and smells most delicious of all the mixes: It is like a bakery or a pastry, with hints of cinnamon and other spices. Though it turns a dreary brown, somewhat unappetizing color when mixed, the carrot cake screams homey. It is probably the best mix to use if you are trying to convince people it is a homemade cake.

The cherry on top (not literally) is that these cupcakes rose quite well in the oven, making them one of the more attractive cupcakes of all the boxed mixes I made. They were brown and looked like muffins in a way that screamed fall. On taste, I think the carrot cupcake certainly photographs drier than it actually is, but it is still probably the boxed mix that lacks the most moisture.

The flavors are a mix of sweet and spicy, though I found the smell of the mix was more pungent than the taste. The classic carrot cake flavor is there, though, and it is one that I would keep coming back to take a bite of. If a dry cupcake is not really your thing, a smidgen of cream cheese frosting could liven the texture while keeping the carrot cake flavors intact.

I baked up the Lemon Cake Mix and brought it to a family gathering, and it was a hit. The lemon cupcakes rose more than some of the other flavors, like Oreo, but less than the carrot cake. The powder mix itself smelled citrusy and refreshing, which made me worry if it might taste overly artificial. But my worries were not well founded.

This flavor was both subtle and not, resulting in a balanced, wide-ranging flavor. It was tangy and almost sour, but the sweetness helped to calm it down a bit. It is very clearly lemon-flavored, and the cupcake held its moisture nicely; I appreciated this because many of the "super moist" flavors have not proved to be very moist.

For a citrus-flavored cake, it is not bad. It would be better with some sort of frosting, but overall, the lemon flavor Betty Crocker mix delivered the most on the flavor. I was pleasantly surprised. 

For this taste test, I tried as many Betty Crocker flavors as I could find. Hopefully, there is a flavor reviewed here that suits any type of cake lover, from chocolate fanatics to fruit enthusiasts and beyond. The process of making each cake is quite similar: Each needed ¼ cup of oil, three eggs, and 1 cup of water, except for the Oreo mix, which required 2 eggs, 3 tablespoons of oil, and ½ cup of water. I made each mix according to the package instructions and baked a dozen cupcakes for each flavor, greasing a cupcake pan with cooking spray. Each cupcake had about ¼ cup of batter in it.

I did not plan to evaluate the cupcakes on texture, as I figured they would be mostly similar. However, you will see that the texture came up frequently in relation to each flavor's moistness; the Betty Crocker brand proudly boasts "super moist" on the cake mix boxes, so I had to comment on whether that was true in most instances. Besides that, I evaluated the cakes on whether they delivered on flavor. Ultimately, this ranking is ordered by which cake mixes I am most likely to repurchase and make again.