How to Hack Box Cake Mix and PreMade Icing
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It’s easy to hack box cake mix and make it taste homemade! With just a few extra ingredients you’ll have everyone asking for your cake recipe!
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If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook you may have seen that we recently had two birthdays at my house. My husband and youngest son’s birthdays are only 3 days apart and this year they fell on a Friday and Monday so we pretty much made it a weekend long birthday extravaganza!
This year my husband requested a lemon cake and my older boys very strongly suggested chocolate cupcakes for my three year old! Now, I love to bake but you know what I never do? I never make cakes from scratch! Occasionally I get a wild hair and make my icing from scratch but honestly over the years I have perfected how to make box cake mix and premade icing taste soooooo good that I don’t see the point in doing it from scratch.
Now-I need you to promise that when you try this you’re going to come back and let me know what you think okay? Alright, here we go:
How to Make Boxed Cake Mix to Taste Homemade
- 1/3 cup vegetable oil
- 1 extra large egg
- 3.4 oz box instant pudding in a similar flavor to cake mix
IN ADDITION TO LISTED INGREDIENTS ON CAKE MIX BOX, add the above ingredients. Mix in well and bake according to package instructions.
I promise this will make your store-bought box cake mix turn out so dense and moist you won’t be able to stand it!!
Box Cake Mix Hacks
It's easy to make store bought box cake mix taste homemade with these simple hacks!
Materials
- vegetable oil
- large egg
- instant pudding mix
Tools
- mixer
- oven
Instructions
- Pick out an instant pudding flavor similar to that of the box cake mix you are using.
- When preparing the cake, follow package instructions but add an ADDITIONAL 1/3 cup vegetable oil, 1 extra large egg, and the instant pudding mix.
- Bake according to package instructions.
Notes
- Experiment with the pudding flavors to add extra dimension to the box cake mix
How to Make Store-Bought Icing to Taste Homemade
- 8 oz package of cream cheese OR 8 oz container whipped cream
Choose either cream cheese or whipped cream to add to the mix. I usually prefer the cream cheese, especially with lighter frostings but the cool whip is great too and lighter on the calories!
Tips for Store Bought Icing Hacks
- With the cream cheese mix well in a stand mixer (affiliate link) or using an electric mixer until light and fluffy, then add in premade frosting and continue to mix until blended.
- If you are adding the whipped cream I suggest mixing your premade icing in the mixer first until fluffy then add the whipped cream and mixing until blended.
Do you have any hacks for store-bought cake mix or premade icing? I’d love to hear your methods in the comments and PLEASE let me know how you like my versions if you try them!
Have you even looked at the ingredients on these products? Cake mix is not terrible, but store bought frostings lots of ingredients you shouldn’t be eating. Duncan Hines uses corn syrup and partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, which is about as bad as it gets. Betty Crocker uses corn syrup and vegetable oil. Both frostings, even vanilla flavor, use artificial flavors and colorings. These companies use these kinds of ingredients because because they’re cheap, not because they taste good.
If you’re going to get out your electric mixer to “fix” a can of frosting, you may as well make it from scratch, it barely takes any extra effort.
hot take there. cake may be bad for you.
Is the instant pudding just the regular vanilla flavor?
I usually buy french vanilla but if I can’t find that the regular vanilla is perfect fine!
How about frozen berries to store bought icing… should I thaw it, reduce it?? Thoughts
Followed your cake hack nd my cake turned out amazing. Everyone loved it. I used the Duncan Heights Devil Chocolate Cake and in addition to the ingredients on the box, I added, as per your hack, I/3 cup oil, one extra egg and chocolate instant pudding. I also made the icing as shown above,. I used coil whip instead of cream cheese, came out fantastic. So light and fluffy.
Awesome! I’m so glad you enjoyed it! ~Melissa
Would the cream cheese work with coconut pecan icing or do you think the whip cream would be better. I’m a brand new baker
I’d probably try whipped cream with the coconut flavor, I’m not sure how that would mix with cream cheese. ~Melissa
I can’t wait to make my own birthday cake and frosting like this. Do I make the instant pudding or add the instant pudding dry mix to the cake?
Hi Gigi! Happy birthday! Just add the instant pudding mix to the cake mix along with the other extra ingredients, you don’t need to make the pudding first! I hope you love it! Melissa
Hi when adding cream to the icing mix do i need to mix up the packet mix ingredients first and then add the cream to whip or does everything go in together from the start? Thanks!
Hi Hannah, I mix the cream cheese in my stand mixer until it’s super fluffy and then add in the ready-made icing container. I’ve never made icing with a packet so I’m not much help there. I hope that helps, ~Melissa
I added 2 eggs instead of 3 egg whites in a white cake mix and they were great and still very white.
Mascarpone cheese (room temp) with a bit of added vanilla or almond extract really fancies up
canned vanilla frosting or by folding in real whipped cream. The basic vanilla flavor can be changed
with the addition of a variety of flavors — any citrus juice + zest, melted chocolate or butterscotch
morsels, coconut, dissolved coffee crystals, etc.
Great tip Marti, I’ll try that next time I make some cake, thank you! ~Melissa
Question: How do you add the cream cheese without it becoming lumpy? I recently made Paula Deen’s Grandmother’s carrot cake recipe for my birthday. I made cupcakes instead of cake, which made them a little oily but still edible. But my cream cheese pecan icing did not look like it should. I had round bits of cream cheese left in it. It tasted fine but I can do better. It wasn’t beautiful, light and fluffy as it should have been. What did I do wrong?
Sounds like your cream cheese wasn’t soft enough when you started mixing it for the frosting. Leave cream cheese @ room temp to get it nice and soft before you start mixing, and make sure you beat out any lumps before adding anything else to it (you could also run it through the food processor/strain it, but hopefully the above will prevent lumps in the future!)
🙂
I knew someone who added a tablespoon of instant coffee to her chocolate cake mix batter. It was delicious
Instant espresso powder tastes way better also add a 2 tablespoons of mayo to cake. It makes it super moist.
I can’t wait to try this!
This is awesome! Can’t wait to try it out. Question, will the frosting with whipped cream hold up sitting at room temperature on display or will it begin to melt? Thanks!
OMG that is brilliant Melissa!!! I’m definitely going to try this next time I have cake mix!!!
Whhaaaat??! I love this! So tempted to bake up some cupcakes today just to test it out! Thanks so much for sharing your secrets!
If you add 2 tablespoons of peanut butter to cream cheese or buttercream frosting it makes the best peanut butter frosting. it’s really good on brownies.
oh that sounds amazing-I love anything peanut butter, thanks for sharing Becky!
How much cream cheese do you use, one carton?
Yes, one 8 oz package Jacki
Great tips! I’m always looking for ways to enhance the flavor of store bought mixes….I’ll definitely add these extra ingredients next time!
Thanks for sharing your secrets! I’ve always known there was a way to enhance store-bought cake, but never knew how. I’ll be trying this next time!
Additional hint … If making a yellow, butterscotch or similar flavor cake sub melted butter for the oil … yummy! And milk for the water … tastes so much more homemade! If making a chocolate cake use coffee instead of water … just makes the chocolate richer, ypu don’t really taste the coffee
Awesome tips Robin-I’m definitely going to try those substitutions next cake I make, thanks!
What instant pudding flavor would you recommend using in a yellow or spice cake?
Melissa – hope I’m not sending this request twice, the first message disappeared and not sure it got sent. My question is how about the cooking time and oven temp.? Does that need to be adjusted to accommodate the additional ingredients? Also, does the type of pan vary as suggested on the cake mix box?
Hi Linda! I don’t change anything else about the recipe-everything else is according to package instructions. I am sure to check the center of the cake with a toothpick to be sure it’s finished cooking! I hope this helps! ~Melissa
woah 1.3 cups of oil additional??????? 1.3 cup of oil
Oops! It was supposed to be 1/3 cup! Thanks for catching that Dar, I’ve fixed it in the post!
No, the post hasn’t been fixed 🙁 I questioned and used a bit less than that “addition 1/3.” 🙁 I’ve just got thu mixing but gonna throw out. Darn.
The post has been updated Rhonda-it is supposed to be 1/3 cup extra oil but I had accidentally written 1.3 cups in the original post-can I ask why you had to throw your mix out? I’ve never had any issue with the addition of an extra third of a cup of oil in my mixes.
She added the 1.3 cups before the ingredients were changed. ?
These people commenting on here sound like idiots. It isn’t your problem.
I mean… you fixed the recipe. It’s a good recipe. What are you supposed to do — fly to their home and bring a new cake?
Can the cream cheese be added to coconut pecan icing?
I haven’t personally tried it but I think it would be worth a shot! ~Melissa