The Best-Selling Cake Mix In America

Every company with a food product hopes to have a hit on its hands, but the brains behind Betty Crocker have been knocking it out of the boxed cake park for decades. The brand's first-ever cake mix is still popular today, so it will come as no surprise to learn Betty Crocker has been named America's best-selling cake mix, according to data from Nielsen (per General Mills). So what puts Betty in a class of her own? Of course, convenience is key. Dumping a bag of powder into a blend of water, oil, and eggs, whisking it up, and throwing the result in the oven beats all that weighing, measuring, and inevitable forgetting of baking powder. But it's not the only reason we love a BC cake mix.

"I find Betty Crocker to be more consistent and easier to dress up and still get a great result," one Redditor enthused. Elsewhere on social media, home cooks with allergen needs stood 10 toes down by the vintage brand, while others found Betty Crocker was just easier to use and get out of a pan. Many insisted the brand's cakes taste better than other boxed mixes, though that sentiment might not stretch to this particular flavor in the line-up.

Aside from consistency, Betty Crocker has another hold on many home cooks: nostalgia. Although other products were released under the Betty Crocker brand (hands up all the boomers who remember these 2-ingredient noodles), generations have grown up eating cakes their parents baked using BC's boxed mixes, whether they were birthday cakes or "there's-a-y-in-the-day" treats. You wouldn't mess with that magic ... would you?

Fans of the boxed cake mix needn't worry — the recipes aren't changing, but the brand's logo and packaging have had an overhaul. Dubbed by General Mills as the "Bettier Than Ever era," the iconic red spoon is now front and center of the more colorful box, and there are new photos of the cakes to boot. The redesign is accompanied by the limited-edition The Betty Ate Collection: three cute handbags in the form of super moist slices of strawberry delight, yellow, and triple chocolate fudge delight cakes.

As the new Betty Crocker cake mix packaging pops up in stores around the country, it's a great excuse to pick up a box or seven and play around. It's up to you whether you disregard this packet instruction (we're big fans, though), and of course you can always take this option to bump up the cake's fiber content. Home cooks are full of ideas to give their boxed cake mixes a twist, from switching out the egg and oil for soda (pour it in slowly, mix it gently, and make sure it's thoroughly incorporated) to subbing in hot coffee for the water in a chocolate cake. Betty Crocker's boxed cake mixes are so darn near foolproof, no matter what we do to them, that fans have concluded they'll almost always come out tasting amazing.