"It tasted like a wet sponge that had been left in the Sahara Desert to dry."
For the sake of this test and to keep things even across the board, I went with yellow cake since it's kind of the gold standard (pun intended) boxed cake and comes with less variation than other flavors, like chocolate. Not that it matters, but I want to point out how HILARIOUS I found the way competing brands emphasized how "moist" their cakes were (moist supreme, perfectly moist, super moist...I love it). Anyway, here are the brands: Large Box Of Chocolates
1. Pillsbury Moist Supreme Yellow Cake Mix ($1.27)
2. Jiffy Golden Yellow Cake Mix ($0.98)
3. Whole Foods Classic Yellow Cake Mix ($3.29)
4. Duncan Hines Perfectly Moist Classic Yellow Cake Mix ($1.38)
5. Betty Crocker Super Moist Yellow Cake Mix ($1.69)
6. Trader Joe's Yellow Cake and Baking Mix ($2.99)
Each cake was cooked exactly according to their respective package instructions which, surprisingly, did vary (we'll get into that in a bit). Most of them made two 8-inch round cakes or one 9x13-inch sheet cake with the exception of Jiffy, which only made one 8-inch round cake.
While I was trying all of these for the first time with everyone, the taste test wasn't blind for me since I had to package up and serve the cakes. But since I haven't had boxed cake in a while, I truly went in with very little preconceived notions of each brand.
You'll also notice that a few cakes received the same average rating. When that happened, I either sifted through comments to determine the winner between the two or acted as a tie-breaker.
12 Piece Chocolate Boxes The baking instructions and ingredient additions for Jiffy also strayed from the others. There was no need for the addition of any fat, just one egg, and 1/2 cup cold water, and the instructions were to beat on medium speed for four whole minutes. The lack of fat really threw me off since that's what contributes to the moisture and crumb of a cake. So no/less fat means a tighter crumb and a dry cake. Vegetable shortening was listed as ingredient, which is pretty standard