5 Discontinued Betty Crocker Cake Mixes That Deserve A Revival

After spending a few decades using fictional brand mascot Betty Crocker for commercials and cookbooks, General Mills introduced its inaugural Betty Crocker cake mix (Ginger Cake) in 1947. It was the first cake mix of its kind, and home baking was changed forever. Though the Ginger Cake mix has seen some tweaks, as well as a name change — it's now known as Gingerbread Cake mix — the original is technically still available all these years later. But that isn't the case for every type of cake mix Betty Crocker has ever produced, with some subsequently being removed from the line.

Below, we will be discussing some of the discontinued Betty Crocker cake mixes that we feel should be resurrected. Not only do they have old-school fans who would love to see these flavors return, but we believe they would also be a hit with people trying them for the first time. After all, vicarious nostalgia is real, with a lot of people feeling a connection to an era they didn't personally experience. And that certainly applies to the smells and tastes of classic sweet treats.

We only considered Betty Crocker cake mixes that have been officially discontinued, and have stayed that way for a number of years. Mixes like the almost impossible to find Cherry Chip cake mix that either haven't officially been discontinued, or have been known to go away and come back over the years, weren't eligible.

With the decline in the prevalence of malted milkshakes, owing to restaurants streamlining their shake process to do away with adding the malted milk powder, chocolate malt is likewise no longer a major flavor. Long gone are the days when a company like Betty Crocker could justify having a dedicated Chocolate Malt cake mix as they once did. As a Redditor noted in a thread discussing the bygone cake mix flavor, "I don't think anyone under the age of 40 knows what chocolate malt flavor is and that's a shame."

Further down in that same thread are multiple people mourning the mix, with one person passionately declaring, "It's one of the all time great flavors. I'm dying for a piece of that cake." Granted, you can still add malted milk powder to your cake icing for a nostalgic kick, but there's nothing quite like having that chocolate malt flavor present in every bite of your cake.

There are all kinds of old-school flavors, treats, and snacks that seem to get trendy again out of nowhere. Maybe that will happen with chocolate malt — and if it does, we hope Betty Crocker jumps on the bandwagon and revives this delicious cake mix that has been gone since way back in 1962. 

Black Walnut cake in general is a vintage cake that deserves a comeback, one with slight variances in construction and ingredients but that always contains black walnuts. Black walnuts were a popular flavor for sweet treats in the 1950s and '60s, with a taste a bit muskier, earthier, and more bittersweet than regular walnuts. They were so popular, in fact, that Betty Crocker had a dedicated Black Walnut cake mix during that era, introduced in 1958 and lasting into the mid '60s.

However, the mix lacked actual black walnuts, though Betty Crocker recipes at the time for from-scratch Black Walnut cake recommended folding black walnuts into the mix near the end of blending and also adding toasted black walnut halves into the icing. But none of that was shown on the box for the mix, only the basic cake and a simple white icing.

A post in the Hammons Black Walnuts Facebook group discussing Betty Crocker's Black Walnut cake mix has multiple replies calling for it to be brought back. The group also claims October to be Black Walnut Month, so maybe Betty Crocker will celebrate the occasion one year by doing a limited return of this forgotten and uniquely flavored cake mix.

Best known as a classic ice cream flavor that was popular in the '70s, Butter Brickle, a type of buttery toffee, was also used as a base and flavor for other types of desserts. That's the reasong for the Betty Crocker cake mix and frosting of the same name. The icing had actual bits of Butter Brickle, but the mix was just the flavoring. Launched in 1966, this one lasted well beyond the heyday of Butter Brickle itself, surprisingly not discontinued until around 1990. 

Butter Brickle definitely feels like an old-fashioned type of flavor these days. In a post on X discussing Betty Crocker's Butter Brickle cake and frosting, Butter Brickle ice cream was included in a poll of the best "dad flavors," finishing third behind Pistachio and Rum Raisin. But with so-called dad jokes finding renewed relevance in the social media era — with science suggesting that they play a pivotal role in parent-child bonding — maybe dad flavors can likewise make a comeback. And with that, the return of Betty Crocker's golden, buttery, toffee-tastic Butter Brickle cake mix. If all else fails, there is a recipe for Butter Brickle Cake on the Betty Crocker website, using a box of Yellow Cake Mix.

Betty Crocker Chocolate Chip cake mix was a favorite for kids of multiple generations. One Redditor said it was the cake he requested for his birthday every single year as a child until Betty Crocker stopped selling it. In addition to being delicious, it was also functional, as it solved the common problem of chocolate chips sinking to the bottom of the batter since they were already distributed within the mix. So what happened to this beloved cake mix and its accompanying icing?

Like with all of these flavors, all we can do is speculate. It's not as though Betty Crocker puts out a press release every time it discontinues a flavor with a detailed explanation as to why. The sunsetting of the Betty Crocker Chocolate Chip cake mix probably has to do with most people's preference for real chocolate chips in their cake, rather than the chocolatey flecks found in the Chocolate Chip cake mix. 

But there was something about the simplicity of the built-in chips in this cake mix and icing, and the way it seemed to give even the cake itself just the subtlest hint of tasting like a chocolate chip cookie that simply adding chocolate chips to a white or vanilla cake can't fully replicate. 

In 1972, Betty Crocker saw a market for single-serving cakes that could be made in mere minutes, only required the addition of water, and didn't call for icing. And thus, its line of Snackin' Cake cake mixes were born. In total, eight types of mix were added to the line: Chocolate chip, chocolate fudge, chocolate almond, coconut pecan, banana walnut, dates with nuts, applesauce raisin, and spiced raisin. Banana Walnut in particular seems to get a lot of nostalgic love, tasting like banana bread and with actual walnuts included in the mix. It's definitely the flavor that should return if we had to choose one, though we'd love to see the whole line come back.

Unfortunately, with the rise of mug cakes for single-serving dessert needs, people these days probably wouldn't be interested in having to hassle with the oven when you can make pretty impressive concoctions in the microwave. Maybe the Snackin' Cakes line can be reinvented as mug cakes, and we'd be able to have not only Banana Walnut but some of those more unusual flavors — like the Applesauce Raisin — back again in an even more convenient configuration.