Can a box mix produce a cake good enough to serve at your own wedding?

Ever since I was little, I’ve bought into the DIY culture of New Zealand, whether that meant making my own dresses (mixed results), engaging in a side hustle or three (don’t tell IRD), and of course, baking from scratch (chocolate torte anyone?).

Now I’m planning my wedding, and I’ve gone the DIY route once again. Which got me thinking about my wedding cake. Could a box cake taste as good as one made from scratch – without the multiple ingredients, finicky measuring or inconsistent results?

It was clearly time to get scientific. I set out to test a range of box cakes, all of which I baked and sampled on the same day with the same oven and equipment. I am marking against convenience, taste, appearance and price. They’re all vanilla cakes, because with vanilla the flavour has nowhere to hide.

To the oven!

All cakes photographed by Kate Francis Battersby.

7. Countdown Cake Mix Vanilla with Icing ($3.30)

Somebody check in on the marketing team at Countdown, they are not OK. Between the image on the front presenting a cake so dry it could be made of sand and the strange flex of “Australian flour”, I can only assume this packaging design is a cry for help.

This cake gets its bottom place ranking not because of the cake itself, but because of the icing. Oh the icing was so bad. It didn’t know if it wanted to be a glaze or a buttercream, and instead decided to be a film that most closely resembled sausage casing.

The taste remained consistent. Sad to make, sad to eat. While some of these cakes are edible albeit boring, this one was actively offensive.

6. Cinderella Vanilla Mud Cake Baking Mix ($4.99)

Listen, I got tricked by this one. I’m someone who loves chocolate mud cake, so my brain overrode the word “vanilla” and replaced it with “white chocolate”. Vanilla mud cake is not a thing. White chocolate mud cake is barely a thing. But still I expected this mix to emerge from the oven as something dense and decadent.

What I got instead was a cake that was melt-in-your-mouth in a bad way. It was a cake with all the energy of someone who decides they can go another day without washing their hair.

5. Noshu 98% Sugar Free Cake Mix Vanilla Velvet Cake ($7)

This cake mix is like when you see someone who looks cool at a party, but the longer you spend with them, the more tired you feel.

It came out of the oven looking like a baked cheesecake. This should have been a warning sign, but perhaps because I was so enamoured by the fancy gold foil logo, I thought this was simply indicative of the “velvety” texture promised on the box. The end result was a cake that was undercooked on the inside, burnt on the outside, yet somehow rubbery all over. With every bite the fake-sugar flavour became more pronounced. It just didn’t taste like cake.

Looking back, the warning signs are all there. The suspicious macron on Nōshu (given the name is surely a misspelled portmanteau of “no” and “sugar”, it definitely doesn’t need one), the three-tier cake depicted that would require more than one box, and above all, the plain fact that a sugar-free cake isn’t likely to taste very good at all.

Also, the icing was yellow. I guess you could tell guests it was lemon curd minus that pesky lemon flavour?

This is a bad cake, and I’m still shook. The box is so pretty!

4. Mrs Rogers Baking Mix Bases Vanilla ($6)

“Moist cakes, fluffy cupcakes, lemon drizzle loaf… And so much more!”

Allegedly. The reality was a cake that promised everything, yet was the only mix that didn’t come with icing (although literally nothing is still better than the zombie icing Countdown provided).

Mrs Rogers is like that boss full of ambitious ideas who proceeds to delegate those ideas to everyone else.

The cake itself tasted like a blank canvas. Given I could not taste an iota of vanilla, it should really be labelled “plain” flavour mix. It could be a good pick if you’re looking to put your own twist on the cake you bake, as while it lacked vanilla, it also lacked the unpleasant preservative flavour that was present in many of the other mixes.

3. Edmonds Vanilla Cake Mix ($5.79)

Did you know that Edmonds is an anagram for “dependable”? OK, not literally, but it might as well be. Not only did my end result look exactly the same as the image on the box, it also rose the highest out of all the cakes I made, and required the fewest extra ingredients – only one egg, plus water.

Still, it wasn’t perfect. Something that made me suspicious was how white the batter was. Ever curious, I sampled the batter, and got notes of chalk.

While the texture of the resulting cake was good, I fear it actually had Benjamin Button syndrome – after only four hours out of the oven, this baby of a cake already tasted like a little old man. WAIT – COME BACK. YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN. The preservatives in the mix made it taste like something that has been on the shelf of a cheap cake shop for a little too long. Disappointing.

2. Betty Crocker Cake Mix Vanilla Cake ($6.50)

Two of the most trusted names in home baking, Betty Crocker and Edmonds are like two sides of the same coin. That is, if one side asked you add a single egg to the mix, and the other required the addition of a whopping three eggs, milk and butter.

Perhaps all these added ingredients are worth it though, because this cake is very good at hiding its box origins. Even the cake batter tasted fresh (the box warns you not to eat it due to the raw egg, but I’ll be damned if I put my safety before scientific research!)

This was the only box mix that came with pre-made icing. Given the low success rate of icings for the other cakes, I can see why Betty Crocker didn’t trust me to make my own. However it seems the amount of icing on the picture is twice what’s actually in the box. I was squeezing that bag of icing to the last milligram and could barely cover the top.

1. The Caker Coconut and Raspberry Cake Kit ($29.99)

Let’s be honest, comparing this cake mix to the rest is like bringing a gun to a knife-fight. I mean, really – who would’ve guessed the cake that costs five times as much tastes better than the others? So the real question becomes: is it five times better?

Countdown take note: I literally exclaimed “Wow!” when I opened the box, due to the colourful, bespoke goodies inside – separate ingredients (for freshness?), a recipe card, even a baking liner. I felt so cared for! This feeling was only slightly dampened by the realisation I needed raspberries (not included, for freshness) to make this cake, but no eggs so… The Caker giveth and The Caker taketh away.

After all my single-packet experiences, I felt overwhelmed by the number of bags I needed to open. The way I struggled to open the desiccated coconut made me feel like a “before” actor in an infomercial, scowling and  stumbling haplessly as coconut exploded across the room.

The cake came out looking just like the box, sans the rosebud decoration. While the first bite gave me a hit of coconut ice, the second taste showcased the (self-provided) taste of raspberries and very soon I was blissing out on kaffir lime. It was the only cake that got more delicious the more of it I ate.

Conclusion

Eating a little slice of each of these cakes left me hungry for less. Turns out, unless someone quickly cracks the code of a cake mix that’s both low-cost and high quality, I don’t think my wedding will feature a box cake.

While none of these cakes were perfect, each one took me on a journey. Countdown made me laugh, Cinderella made me question my ability to read, Noshu hurt me spiritually, I fell asleep eating Mrs Rogers, Betty Crocker and Edmonds were like trusted aunts, and I will never financially recover from The Caker.

This endeavour left me over-sugared and underwhelmed. However, not wanting to waste food, I passed the resulting cakes to friends, family, and co-workers. Somehow, the feedback was that the cakes were in fact… yum? Turns out you can have your cake and eat it too, so long as your expectations are set a lot lower than wedding quality, and you get the cake for free. Life hack!