The Pudding Powder Mistake You Need To Avoid When Adding It To Boxed Cake Mix

There's always room for improvement, especially when it comes to cooking. Extra ingredients can greatly level up instant cake mix. One secret ingredient that can greatly improve your boxed cake mix is pudding, but when you add new ingredients like pudding, it's easy to make mistakes that can ruin your cake.

One of the biggest mistakes you can make when adding pudding to boxed cake is using the wrong kind. Specifically, you want to use instant pudding, not cook-and-serve. Instant pudding is, as the name implies, something that comes together in a hurry. It doesn't need to be cooked since it contains modified cornstarch, which allows it to thicken solely with the addition of milk. When it's added to cake mix, it makes the final treat much more moist and adds flavor. According to professional baker Joy Wilson in an interview with Tasting Table, "It's like giving your cake a plush velvet robe. Instant pudding adds moisture, body, and a softer crumb."

On the other hand, as you may well guess from its name, cook-and-serve pudding needs to be cooked. That's because it contains standard cornstarch instead of the modified version. Since it doesn't cook at the same rate as the cake mix, the results of mixing this variety into the batter can be disappointing. The cake is likely to be denser and may not even fully cook. For the sake of your dessert, take a moment to scan the box and ensure you're using instant pudding.

Using the wrong type of pudding isn't the only folly to avoid here. For one, ensure you're not using cake that already has pudding added to it — yes, that's really a thing. While pudding was once an underrated ingredient addition to boxed cake mix, it's gotten more popular, to the point where many brands sell mixes with pudding powder already added. So, this is another reminder to carefully read the text on the package. If you add pudding on top of that, it may not cook correctly and can fall. It's possible to have too much of a good thing, after all.

Next, be sure you add the dry pudding powder into the cake mix, not prepared pudding. For best results, combine the pudding powder with the dry cake mix before adding any liquid to ensure they mix more thoroughly and the pudding distributes evenly across the cake. If it doesn't distribute properly, you may get an odd, patchy texture instead of the moist, flavorful cake you're aiming for.

Finally, remember that whenever you change a recipe, you often need to make adjustments to other ingredients in order to account for it. Accommodating substitutions when baking is vital to ensure the final product is a good one. In this case, you're adding extra dry ingredients, so you may need more wet ingredients, like a small amount of extra butter, milk, or eggs (though some have reported adding just the mix and a splash of vanilla and being more than happy with the final cake).

Static Media owns and operates Foodie and Tasting Table