This Is the Angel Food Cake You Should Be Buying

For as long as I can remember, my mom would make amazing trifles with angel food cake, custard and chocolate. The dessert always looked impressive, but my mom had a secret to this deceptively elegant dessert: The cake was an angel food cake mix from a box. Now, when I want to recreate a tasty trifle of my own and don’t have a lot of time, I turn to a mix, too.

Which brand of angel food cake mix gives that just like homemade flavor and texture? Our Test Kitchen baked up five brands to help a crew of testers and myself find out:

Honorable Mention: Betty Crocker

Score: 8/10

This pantry staple brand did well in our test. Betty Crocker angel food cake was perfectly airy and light. It sprung back to the touch. The only drawback for this cake was that it didn’t have a ton of sweetness or flavor. If you plan on serving up this cake with fruit and berries, you’ll be just fine.

Runner-Up: Duncan Hines

Score: 8.5/10

Just ahead of Betty Crocker was Duncan Hines’ angel food cake mix. This angel food cake was lauded for its subtle vanilla flavor with a hint of sweetness. The cake itself had a phenomenal lift and was just downright satisfying. A few testers found this cake to be a bit too moist and sticky for angel food cake, but this cake was universally appreciated otherwise.

Best in Show: Baker’s Corner

Score: 9/10

Our favorite angel food cake mix was Baker’s Corner—an Aldi exclusive. When it comes to sweets, Aldi really does well in our tests. Just check out the results for the best peanut butter cups, chocolate frosting, chocolate chips and cake mix.

We loved this cake because it checked all our boxes. The cake was exceptionally light and fluffy like any good angel food cake should be. The cake itself was sweet and moist—a must for any cake. And, while this isn’t flavor-related, testers liked how this cake just looked a bit on the homemade side. If you were in a pinch, you could pass this off as a from-scratch cake. For us testers, that’s the hallmark of any good boxed mix.

The Takeaways

This test proved to us that a good boxed mix is a great stand-in for the real deal. Served up with strawberries and some whipped cream, they would make for a great casual dessert.

While we had our favorites, though, it’s worth pointing out that no cake mix brand scored that low in this test. So if you’re at the store and you can’t find one of our preferred brands, don’t worry. Any of the brands we tried would work well in these desserts that use angel food cake as a base.

Prefer Cake from Scratch? Try These!

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Best Angel Food Cake

For our daughter's wedding, a friend made this lovely, airy cake from a recipe she's used for decades. It really is one of the best angel food cake recipes I've found. Serve slices plain or dress them up with fresh fruit. —Marilyn Niemeyer, Doon, Iowa

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Glazed Chocolate Angel Food Cake

A drizzling of rich chocolate glaze lends an elegant touch and will keep guests wanting more. With only 3g of fat per slice, this is one treat you'll want to see year after year! —Mary Relyea, Canastota, New York

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Toffee Angel Food Cake

Sometimes I crave the sweet flavor and light, moist texture of angel food cake. Chopped toffee bits and whipped cream make it even more indulgent. For best results, refrigerate the cake for at least one hour before serving. —Collette Gaugler, Fogelsville, Pennsylvania

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Orange Dream Angel Food Cake

A basic angel food cake becomes a heavenly indulgence, thanks to a hint of orange flavor swirled into every bite. The orange color makes slices of the cake look so pretty when arranged on individual dessert plates.—Lauren Osborne, Holtwood, Pennsylvania

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