The Best Gluten Free Boxed Cake
It used to be impossible to make things conveniently for a gluten-free diet, but in recent years there has been an explosion of products that have hit the shelves just to serve the gluten-free community. Now you don’t have to go to all the work of scratch baking a cake for yourself, you have several store-bought boxed options to choose from. Nothing beats a homemade cake, but these boxed varieties get close.
One thing to note with this post, I personally don’t believe any kind of cake should exist besides yellow cake with chocolate icing. It’s the way it was meant to be! Therefore, this blog post strongly reflects my own opinions. If you prefer a different variety, I am sure these companies provide options for you. All these boxed cakes were made using the same chocolate icing and baked to the directions on the box. Ten people sampled each cake, and the winners are as follows.
First Place: Cup4Cup Yellow Cake Mix ($8.99)
Cup4Cup made a very strong showing, receiving the favorite vote from 8 out of 10 voters. Our tasters were most pleased with its texture, most tasters could not tell the difference between this and a glutenous cake. It cuts very smoothly with little graininess, and the flavor is exactly what you expect. One taster noted a slight corn taste to the cake but said that the texture still made this a favorite.
Second Place: King Arthur Yellow Cake Mix ($6.95)
King Arthur is known to provide some of the best gluten-free products, so it is no surprise that their cake mix comes out close to the top. Our tasters thought the flavor was nearly as good as the Cup4Cup, but it fell short in the texture. When the cake is cut, there is a noticeable crumb that sticks to the knife, and the crumbly texture is noticeable on the palette as well. Overall, the Kind Arthur provides a very good alternative to the Cup4Cup.
Third Place: Bob’s Red Mill Vanilla Yellow Cake Mix ($8.95)
Rounding up this test in third place is Bob’s Red Mill. Our testers noted a distinctly paler color to the cake, as well as a significant crumbliness. The flavor of Bob’s cake mix is robust, but it fell so short on texture that it landed itself in last place. Our baker noted that the texture could be significantly improved by modifying the directions, but that was not included in this test. Our testers considered it worth driving out of the way to get Cup4Cup or King Arthur and considered Bob’s a good choice if it is the only one available.