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Be your own cake-mix connoisseur! Picking out cake mixes and experimenting with them all can be a fun process. Cake mixes don't need to be boring - try sprucing them up with your favorite ingredients. Add chocolate chunks and dried fruits. Layer them after baking with fruity pie fillings, whipped creams, and icings.

Cake mixes have earned such a bad rep with gourmets and chefs. In a lot of cases, a cake mix can save you the time you need to make the cake look extra special. There are even books dedicated to making cake mixes even better.

Now, I can sit here telling you that "this cake mix is the best" and "I wouldn't ever use this cake mix", but how do I know how you go about making your cakes? You might make them in a different way, meaning my BEST cake mix could be the worst cake that you have ever made. It all depends on each of us as an individual. You need to go out and experiment with your own mixes.

I do, however, have a few guidelines that should help you in finding the perfect mix.

Whenever I have to make a cake really quick, I usually reach for either a box of Duncan Hines or Betty Crocker. Both names are relatively trusted in the cake mixing industry. They aren't too expensive, their instructions are concise, and the result is quite the moist and rich flavored product.

On the other hand, I find that these cake mixes are pretty much texture-less. When you bite into them, it feels like you're biting into a sponge. It melts in your mouth.

Although the "melts in your mouth" feeling may be all well in good for your toothless friends, I really don't like it. That's where adding things comes in to play - to a chocolate cake, I will add things like cherry pie filling or chopped pieces of chocolate bars and candies. These things give it "mouth-feel" and texture.

Another tip that I would suggest is to NOT go for the cheap cake mixes. A lot of the time those cake mixes may turn out okay, but the overall product is usually flavorless, spongy, dry, or just tastes completely artificial and fake. Personally, I say no to dollar store cake mix deals.

Just because you settle for a cake mix, doesn't mean that you need to settle for satisfactory results. To your dark chocolate cake, try adding things like bananas, strawberries, pecans, cinnamon, cayenne or cashews. To your white or yellow cakes, try adding things like pineapple, cocktail mixes, coconut, lemon zest, or mandarins. The list goes on - just use your imagination!

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