25 Cake Mix Hacks For You to Make…Mmmm!

I love to bake from scratch, but I always keep several boxed cake mixes in my pantry. Sometimes there just isn’t time, and that’s where box mixes are oh so handy! Enter the doctored cake mix which will transform your box cake mix with these cake box tricks!

Doctored Cake Mix Recipes for You to Make

A doctored  cake mix is  when you start with a box mix and add in different ingredients to create a different kind of cake than what’s described in the instructions.

• Using a boxed cake mix has the advantage of being easier and taking less time.
• Adding strategic ingredients not called for on the box can elevate that box cake to a tasty homemade level.

Related: How to Make a Box Cake Better <–tons of easy cake making tips! and 10 Fun Snack Cake Crafts for Kids

Here are several of our absolute favorite cakes that are a result of cake hacks…

Box Cake Mix Hacks

1. Banana Cake Batter With Cream Cheese Frosting

Easy Banana Cake is delicious! This banana cake tastes similar to banana bread, but better! Mainly because this particular banana cake has cream cheese frosting on it. Cream cheese frosting makes everything better. The best part is, it is a doctored white cake mix recipe that tastes homemade!

2. Decadent Strawberry Cream Cheese Cake

Strawberry Cream Cheese Cake is one of my favorite strawberry box cake hacks. This strawberry cream cheese cake is  so good and decadent. The sweet, buttery, strawberry cake flavor paired with cream cheese! It’s a match made in heaven.

3. Sweet Moist Lemon Poppy Seed Bundt Cake

Lemon Poppy Seed Bundt Cake is something I could eat all day! These yellow cake hacks make this sweet, moist, and filled with lemony goodness! This lemon poppy seed Bundt cake does not last long in my house.

4. Cherry Cake Doctored Cake Mix With Cream Cheese Frosting

Cherry Cake with Cherry Cream Cheese Frosting looks delicious. This is one of those cake mix hack recipes that everyone will love. You use white box cake mix, but you add cherry pie filling to the cake and the frosting. 

5. Pumpkin Spice Butter Cake That Tastes Homemade

Gooey Pumpkin Butter Cake is perfect for the fall. If you’ve never had butter cake it is sweet, dense, and rich. Add in pumpkin and pumpkin pie spice and you have the perfect dessert that came from yellow boxed cake mix.

Doctored Cake Mix Ideas

6. Caramel Apple Butter Cupcakes Made From Apple Cider

Caramel Apple Butter Cupcakes are another perfect fall treat. These cake mix ideas are so awesome. With this caramel apple cupcake recipe, you add apple cider, apple butter, and lots of sweet, creamy and caramel to a yellow cake mix.

7. Snickerdoodle Cupcakes Made With Yellow Or White Box Mix

Snickerdoodle Cupcakes are perfect for Christmas! Usually with cake mix hacks they tell you which cake mix to use, this one you have a choice between white or yellow boxes of cake mix. I think I would probably go with white so they looked more like the cookies. But these snickerdoodle cupcakes are full cinnamon-y goodness!

8. Pumpkin Cake That Tastes Like Pumpkin Pie

Pumpkin Magic Cake is another perfect fall dessert that starts with a yellow cake mix box. This pumpkin cake looks amazing. It looks like pumpkin pie, meets delicious fluffy cake, with a good helping of frosting on top.

9. Snickers Cupcakes Made With Chocolate Cake Mix

This is one of my favorite things to make out of cake mix around Halloween time, Snickers Cupcakes. We usually have so much leftover Halloween candy, so I like to gather the snickers and make these delicious Snickers cupcakes. You can use a German chocolate cake mix or a regular chocolate boxed cake mix as a foundation of this yummy dessert.

10. 3 Ingredient Cherry Cupcakes

These 3 Ingredient Cherry Cupcakes are one of the most perfect cake mix hacks when you don’t have a lot of making supplies at home. All you need is white cake mix, cherry pie filling, and egg whites.

Recipes Using box Cake Mix

11. Easy and Rich Candy Bar Poke Cake

This Easy Candy Bar Poke Cake is another cake my family loves. We call it something else, but the recipe is the same. It is another cake that is great to make when you have left over candy. Be warned, it is delicious, but so rich! This is a doctored yellow cake mix recipe.

12. Cake Batter Ice Cream Cupcakes

Love cake and ice cream? The these Cake Batter Ice Cream Cupcakes are perfect for you! This is such a neat cake mix hack. It has a yellow cake mix base, then you use cake mix to make a deliciously flavored ice cream, and add frosting and sprinkles!

13. Dreamsicle Orange Tang Cake

These Orange Tang Cake tastes very similar to a dreamsicle, but in cake form. Who would have thought you could doctor yellow cake mix up with Orange Tang.

14. Brownie Snack Cakes From Cake Batter

I didn’t know I needed this until now! Cake Batter Brownie Snack Cakes are a mix of cake, brownies, and chocolate candies, frosting, and sprinkles. I am so excited to try these snack cakes because they use boxed Funfetti cake mix AND a box of brownie mix.

15. Brown Sugar and Cinnamon Sock It To Me Cake

There is a bakery nearby that makes this Sock It To Me Cake and now I am excited to be able to make it myself. This Sock It To Me Cake is a doctored butter cake mix full of brown sugar and cinnamon which definitely gives it almost a breakfast feel, but the addition of sour cream makes it so moist! 

Recipes Using Cake Mix

16. Chocolate Coconut Poke Cake

Coconut Chocolate Cake is another poke cake that mixes chocolate and coconut. This one you will be using a mixture of sweetened condensed milk and coconut cream making this a rich and sweet dessert added to a doctored box of Devil’s Food cake mix.

17. Easy Chocolate Cake That Tastes Homemade

This Easy Chocolate Cake is one of those cake hacks that are great if you’re strapped for time. It tastes homemade and yet is super quick to make. Even the best of bakers will have a hard time figuring out this is from a boxed Devil’s Food cake mix.

18. Minty Sweet Shamrock Shake Cupcakes

Shamrock Shake Cupcakes is a perfect children’s cake mix recipe hacked from a vanilla boxed cake mix. They’re fun, sweet, minty, with frosting and Lucky Charms on top! Make them for St. Patrick’s day, for a birthday party, or just because.

19. Adult Kahlua Chocolate Bundt Cake

Kahlua Bundt Cake is such a delicious cake. This is one of those doctored yellow cake mix hacks that is better for the adults to make since it does involve two different types of alcohol in it. But this dessert has a touch of vanilla, chocolate, and coffee, making it perfect.

20. Tiki Cocktail Cake With Chocolate and Coconut

Tiki Cocktail Cake is not only delicious sounding, but it looks amazing as well. It is chocolatey, moist, and has shredded coconut making it a delicious combo, but don’t be turned off by the buttermilk. You won’t taste it, believe it or not buttermilk makes your baked goods extra moist and it all starts with a box of chocolate cake mix.

Box Cake Mix Hacks

21. Quick and Easy Carrot Cupcakes

Need some carrot cake mix hacks? Then these Time Savor Carrot Cupcakes are for you! You don’t have to make carrot cake from scratch for it to still taste amazing, you can doctor up the spiced boxed cake mix with fresh ingredients to make it taste homemade.

22. Hot Chocolate Mug Cakes

Did you know you could make a single serving of cake in 2 minutes? Yup, with these 2 Minute Hot Chocolate Mug Cakes you can have your cake and eat it within minutes. I think this is one of make favorite cake hacks, because if you’re like me, sometimes you only want a little sweet, not an entire cake. This is made quick and easy from a box of Angel food cake and a box of brownie mix.

23. 3 Ingredient Crockpot Lava Cake

Need some hands-off cake hacks? Then you will love this Crockpot Lava Cake. It only uses 3 ingredients and it is going to be sweet and decadent! It uses a box of Funfetti cake mix, pudding, and white chocolate to create a dessert you can add to your crockpot and forget about it for a while.

24. Nutter Butter Peanut Butter Cake

Nutter Butters are one of the best cookies, in my opinion. And this Peanut Butter Bomb Cake uses not only Nutter Butters, but yellow cake mix, peanut butter, and chocolate. This peanut butter cake sounds amazing!

25. Mint Chocolate Chip Swirl Cupcakes

For those of you who love the mint and chocolate combinations, these Mint Chocolate Chip Cupcakes are right up your alley. They’re not only minty and chocolatey, but super pretty with the green and brown icing swirl all starting with a boxed Devil’s Food cake mix.

Who knew Betty Crocker or Duncan Hines cake mixes could taste like made from scratch cake and make such a moist cake?

More Cake Tips & Baking Ideas from Kids Activities Blog

Have you tried any of these doctored box mix recipes? Tell us about it in the comments! We’d love to hear from you.