• Softened butter instead of vegetable oil
• Buttermilk instead of water
• A teaspoon of flavoring (ex. vanilla or almond flavoring if baking a yellow cake, lemon flavoring for a lemon cake, etc.)

The tips above are tried and true ways to doctor up a cake mix. I always frost my cakes with homemade frosting which definitely adds another layer of richness and great flavor to the cake. You can make frosting taste more like homemade by stirring in a teaspoon of vanilla or other flavorings. Sandra Lee gave this tip on an episode of the Food Network show Semi-homemade.

I’ve also come across other ways to dress up cake mix such as:

• Adding pudding mix before adding any liquid ingredients.
• Adding instant coffee mix to chocolate cake mix to enhance the chocolate flavor.

Do you have any tips for making cake mix taste homemade? If so, share them with others in the comments!

Duncan Hines Red Velvet Cake Mix

That’s right, I use a cake mix to make my famous Red Velvet Cake. I make no apologies for it. In fact, most of my cakes are semi-homemade and baked using a mix.

To make my Red Velvet Cake taste homemade, I add the following ingredients:

• softened butter instead of oil
• buttermilk instead of water
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla flavoring

For even richer homemade taste, I top the Red Velvet Cake off with homemade Cream Cheese Frosting. For more ways to doctor up a cake mix, check out my post How to Make Cake Mix Taste Like Homemade.