9 Best Cake Mixes 2024 | UK Chef Reviewed

• As an extremely popular flavour, you'll be able to find a chocolate cake mix easily from any supermarket. Plus, chocolate is a great failsafe option for an occasion where you don't know the preferences of the guests. To add your own signature touch to the cake, you can buy or make some milk chocolate icing, or even add dark chocolate chunks into the cake mixture, so the cake will come out extra-chocolatey with the perfect balance of taste and sweetness! 

• Some people prefer cakes that taste less sweet with a hint of warmth and a spicy flavour, in which case, carrot and ginger cakes are both great options. With ground ginger or cinnamon added to the cake mix, these spices will blend well with the sweetness of sugar or carrot. Great for autumn and festive-themed bakes, you'll only need to add candied ginger to decorate a ginger cake or a cream cheese icing to a carrot cake.

• Vanilla cake may sound less exciting, but its simple-yet-creamy flavour is also popular with just about anyone, especially kids. Layer the cake with your favourite icing and fruit, and you'll end up with a dessert filled with various pleasing flavours. You can always adapt a vanilla or a plain cake mix - think dried fruits, cocoa powder, chocolate, or even cookie chunks as rich, flavoursome add-ins to liven up a simple packet mix. 

• If you want something citrusy or zingy, then the perfectly-balanced sourness and sweetness of a lemon cake will be your choice. Ideal for refreshing summer baking and easy to decorate with just a drizzle of icing-sugar-and-water, or add lemon juice to the icing and extra grated zest to the mixture for extra zing.

• Opting for a red velvet mix will produce an unusual-looking cake with a deliciously-complex taste. Combining a slight tang from vinegar and buttermilk, the mild flavour of chocolate, and the sweetness of cream cheese icing (which you'll have to prepare yourself), the look and taste of a red velvet cake will impress guests even at a special gathering.

Check out our top food colouring suggestions to ensure that your cake stands out once decorated.

Make sure that the cake mix will serve your expected guests - everyone will want at least one slice of cake at a party, and will expect more than one slice if you are baking it for the family to consume! For a bake sale you'll need 12 - 24 servings (ideally individual cupcakes, muffins or brownies, for practical reasons). Some packet mixes can be handily baked either as a whole cake or as muffins / cupcakes, which makes them an adaptable choice.

Here are top recommendations for the best cake tins and the best kitchen scales - both essential for home baking.

If you suffer from coeliac disease or you prefer not to include gluten in your diet, you'll be pleasantly surprised with the range of cake mixes available nowadays, with plenty of flavours to choose from. Instead of regular wheat flour, gluten-free cake mixes use a blend of flours, such as sunflower seed flour, tapioca flour, buckwheat flour and brown rice flour, to name a few. 

The presence of nuts themselves are always clearly stated on packet mixes, but also check if the product has been made in a factory handling nuts for other product lines, meaning there is a cross-contamination risk - if so you'll need to do further online research, or avoid completely.

Traditional cake ingredients like eggs and cows milk (containing lactose) are other common allergens, which are labelled in bold on the packaging. Luckily as the vegan market expands, dairy-free offerings are becoming more widely available.

Just because you have a different dietary requirement, it doesn't mean that you can't and won't be able to enjoy the convenience of cake mixes like others do. Though not as plentiful, you can find vegan mixes online (and now in some supermarkets too) where you'll simply have to add water, vegetable oil and the plant-based milk or yoghurt of your choice.

Nowadays most vegan cake mixes taste absolutely amazing, so much so that even your non-vegan friends will be asking where you got it, once they've had a try. We'd also like to remind you that although some cake mixes are advertised as 'dairy-free', most of them do require eggs in the recipe, so unless you know how to reliably substitute eggs with a vegan alternative, it might be easier just to purchase a vegan cake mix. 

Cake mixes are unquestionably convenient and save you time, but you'll still need to assemble and add some extra ingredients. Depending on the mix, sometimes you'll need ingredients as simple as water and oil, but other cake mixes will require a few more, for example, milk, eggs, butter or vanilla extract. 

Often decorating the cake can catch people out - the packet will show a fully decorated cake "for illustrative purposes only" - so double check if you need chocolate spread, butter, chocolate, jam or icing sugar, to fill and top your masterpiece. To avoid the disappointment of not being able to bake (and eat) cake as soon as the craving strikes, always make sure that you've got key ingredients at home or buy them along with your online grocery shopping when you are purchasing the cake mix itself.