The 3 Best Chocolate Cake Mixes You Can Buy at the Store

There are few things as life-affirming as baking a chocolate cake from scratch, but sometimes it’s simply not possible. Maybe your kid is sick, or you’re running late, or you forgot to pick up Dutch-process cocoa powder. That’s when a great boxed chocolate cake mix can save the day.

The first cake mixes were released nearly a century ago by P. Duff and Sons, a Pittsburgh company that patented a process for dehydrating cake batter. But it wasn’t until after World War II that premade cake mix really became popular. It was the same brands that dominate grocery store shelf space today—Betty Crocker, Pillsbury, and Duncan Hines—that gained the strongest foothold with American consumers.

Boxed cake mixes are convenient, of course: Add a couple of eggs, oil, and water, slide the batter-filled tin into the oven, and you’re done. But they can be versatile: Swap out that water for a liquid that’ll add some oomph—coffee, for example, in a chocolate cake. Or use a bright, verdant olive oil in place of the neutral oil to add a layer of complexity to any boxed cake. If you don’t have time for a fully homemade cake recipe, you can still make something unique and full of flavor. But first, you’ll need a quality cake mix.

To find the best chocolate cake mix you can buy in-store, we put 13 brands through a blind taste test. In the end our tasters selected three mixes they agreed resulted in the springiest, most chocolaty cakes.

Care for a slice?

Photo by Travis Rainey, Food Styling by Kaitlin Wayne

We started our sourcing for this taste test by scoping out as many familiar supermarket brands as possible. Next, we consulted existing reviews for boxed chocolate cake mix to see which brands we might have overlooked.

Boxed chocolate cake mix is available in several varieties, including devil’s food, milk chocolate, and chocolate fudge. We included any of the subcategories that feature chocolate as the central flavor, without extraneous ingredients. Not on the list: German chocolate cakes, Oreo cakes, chocolate-caramel cakes, and the like. That meant some brands were represented more than others: Duncan Hines has four contenders in our taste test, while Whole Foods 365 has just one, for example.

To reduce food waste, we baked each mix into cupcakes rather than full cake rounds (easier to pawn off the leftovers to a bevy of coworkers who weren’t in attendance). The cakes were baked in the morning, following all package instructions, and we held our tasting that afternoon after letting the cupcakes cool for several hours. We left our cupcakes unfrosted so our tasters could focus solely on the cake. Tasters tried each sample one by one, sharing notes on appearance, aroma, texture, and flavor before moving to the next contender. After tasting each cupcake, they identified several standouts and retasted before agreeing on favorites.

We’re not interested in a cake that simply gestures to chocolate flavor, our tasters said. They wanted a serious, deep, rich expression of chocolate in both aroma and bite. Ideally, that chocolate flavor wouldn’t be straightforwardly sweet. Instead, like real chocolate, it would have some element of complexity: a fruity note or a slight bitterness to offset some of the sweetness in the mix.

The cake’s crumb was equally important. It should be moist, yes, but not dense—if we wanted fudgy, we’d go for boxed brownies. Plus, a cake that sticks to your teeth is a no-go. On the other hand, a loose, shaggy crumb isn’t ideal either. The best boxed chocolate cake mix should bake into a dessert that offers a slight resistance to the tooth, not simply disintegrate upon first bite.

Photo by Travis Rainey, Food Styling by Kaitlin Wayne

Although the moniker “devil’s food” typically refers to an intensely chocolate cake, there’s no technical definition—or real etymology—for the name. A common theory is that the dense, rich cake was created as a foil to light, airy angel food cake, but it’s impossible to be sure. Duncan Hines lists cocoa among its ingredients, and, notably, the mix is sweetened with sugar rather than corn syrup, which is the sole sweetener in some other mixes.

Why it won us over: In a crowded playing field, Duncan Hines Devil’s Food cake mix stood out because of its flavor. Tasters couldn’t get enough of the robust chocolate notes in this contender, which were complemented by a strong vanilla flavor. “They slapped that vanilla in there and said, ‘Deal with it!’” proclaimed senior Test Kitchen editor Shilpa Uskokovic. Other tasters agreed the prominent vanilla notes were a nice enhancement.

This mix also scored points for texture, with food director Chris Morocco calling it “pleasantly resistant” and “lightly spongy,” and Shilpa praised its “open crumb.” That texture was the perfect Goldilocks sweet spot for our tasters.

We’d love it with: Lean into the aromatics here; spread on a layer of brown butter frosting—ingeniously boosted by toasted milk powder—from Shilpa’s Chocolate Sheet Cake With Brown Butter Frosting.

Photo by Travis Rainey, Food Styling by Kaitlin Wayne

According to Betty Crocker’s website (via Nielsen data released in April 2025), Milk Chocolate is the company’s most popular cake mix. In addition to Dutch-process cocoa powder, the mix includes corn syrup and nonfat dry milk powder, which is commonly used as a tenderizer and likely contributes to the cake’s milky, softer chocolate notes.

Why it won us over: If you’re on the hunt for a mix that bakes into a cake with a silky smooth chocolate flavor, you can’t do better than Betty Crocker’s Super Moist Milk Chocolate cake mix. Instead of the swaggering dark chocolate flavor of Duncan Hines Devil’s Food, this contender expressed itself more delicately—Chris likened it to Nesquik, and staff photographer/visuals editor Elliott Jerome Brown Jr. compared its flavor to chocolate Teddy Grahams. Each cupcake’s light, pillowy crumb won approving nods from tasters as well, and, all around, they agreed that Betty Crocker’s Milk Chocolate cake mix made for cupcakes that might get along well with a kicky frosting—chocolate sour cream, for instance.

We’d love it with: It’s good to go tangy with something lighter like a milk chocolate cake or cupcake. Try out a (very easy to make) Whipped Cream Cheese Frosting.

Photo by Travis Rainey, Food Styling by Kaitlin Wayne

“There’s pudding in the mix!” advertises the packaging of Betty Crocker’s Super Moist Triple Chocolate Fudge cake mix. That pudding is meant to give the cake “a rich, decadent flavor and texture.” While there is no actual pudding (prepared or dried) in the ingredients, the claim seems to rest on a single component: modified cornstarch, a favorite of Shilpa’s. “It tenderizes the crumb and helps the cake hold on to moisture,” she explains. It’s important to note, however, that several other mixes also include modified cornstarch, yet don’t make similar proclamations.

Additionally, this mix uses two types of cocoa (red Dutched and dark Dutched) as well as chocolate chips (though we didn’t detect any solid chips in the final cake).

Why it won us over: Out of our 13 contenders, Betty Crocker’s Triple Chocolate Fudge cake mix produced the most profoundly chocolaty cake. Senior cooking editor Joe Sevier said this sample, above all, tasted of chocolate the minute it hit your tongue. Associate Test Kitchen manager Inés Anguiano was similarly wowed by its depth, praising its “actual chocolate flavor.”

“This tastes like boxed cake mix,” senior Test Kitchen editor Jesse Szewczyk said, reveling with nostalgia. High praise, indeed. Other tasters were pleased with the cupcakes’ springy open crumb and plush texture, but again and again, taster after taster kept returning to that rich chocolate flavor that kept them coming back for more.

We’d love it with: A classic chocolate cake requires a classic chocolate icing. And because boxed cakes are meant to be easy, we say go for Epicurious’s Easy Chocolate Frosting.

• 365 Classic Chocolate Cake Mix: Although some tasters enjoyed its dense texture, others said 365’s mix baked up too gummy.
• Duncan Hines Butter Recipe Fudge: With a close, dense crumb, tasters thought these cupcakes veered closer to brownies than cake.
• Duncan Hines Dark Chocolate Fudge: These cupcakes were simply too dry.
• Duncan Hines Dolly Parton Perfectly Moist Chocolate Flavored Cake Mix: We love Dolly Parton in this house, and her namesake cupcakes got positive responses initially, but ultimately, tasters were turned off by the cupcakes’ greasy bottoms.
• Great Value Devil’s Food Chocolate Cake Mix: A tender crumb was a plus, but these cupcakes lacked chocolate flavor.
• King Arthur Gluten-Free Chocolate Cake Mix: Tasters enjoyed the intense hit of chocolate in each bite, but those bites were also gummy and dense, which was less pleasant. (Editor’s note: King Arthur does make a classic simple chocolate cake mix, but we were unable to source it for this taste test.)
• Ollin Anyday Chocolate Cake Mix: With little chocolate flavor—or even much sweetness—tasters deemed these more akin to muffins than cupcakes.
• Pillsbury Dark Chocolate Cake Mix: The even, airy texture was a triumph, but some tasters wanted more chocolate flavor.
• Pillsbury Milk Chocolate Cake Mix: Tasters agreed there was a lot of flavor in these cupcakes, but ultimately, Pillsbury lost out to other contenders on texture.
• Williams Sonoma Rich Dark Chocolate Cake Mix: With an unexpected Black Forest cake flavor (think cherry and almonds, though these ingredients are not included in the mix), these cupcakes didn’t have the flavor we associate with a classic boxed chocolate cake mix. That said, they weren’t bad!