Devil's food cake mix substitutes

The everyday swap, adjusted to close the colour and depth gap.

Best for

layer cakes, dump cakes, poke cakes, cake mix cookies, cupcakes

Practically speaking, this is the answer. The difference between the two mixes is smaller than the names suggest: devils food uses more heavily alkalized cocoa and usually a bit more baking soda, which makes it look almost black and taste marginally less sweet and slightly more mellow. Plain chocolate mix bakes a lighter, browner cake that tastes a touch sweeter and brighter. Two tablespoons of Dutch cocoa recovers most of the colour and depth, and the extra tablespoon of oil offsets the drying effect of adding dry cocoa. Do not go past three tablespoons of added cocoa, or the crumb turns dry and crumbly no matter how much oil you add.

The same category of product sold under a slightly different name.

Best for

layer cakes, dump cakes, cake mix cookies, sheet cakes, poke cakes

Not really a substitute so much as the same thing. Chocolate fudge and dark chocolate mixes are built on the same dark alkalized cocoa that gives devils food its colour, and in blind tasting most people cannot tell them apart. Chocolate fudge mixes sometimes run a little sweeter and a shade less dark. Use the box measure for measure, follow its own directions for eggs, oil and water, and change nothing. If you are baking a layer cake where colour is the point, this is a better choice than plain chocolate mix plus cocoa.

A homemade dry blend weighing roughly the same as a standard 15.25 ounce box, so it drops into any mix-based recipe.

Best for

dump cakes, layer cakes, cake mix cookies, sheet cakes, cupcakes

This is the one that genuinely rescues a recipe when there is no box in the cupboard. Whisk everything together thoroughly, breaking up cocoa lumps, then use it exactly where the recipe says mix and add whatever eggs, oil and liquid the recipe calls for. Two honest differences: commercial mixes contain powdered emulsifiers that hold extra moisture and produce that distinctively soft, fine, slightly bouncy crumb, so a scratch mix bakes up a little more open, a little more domed and a little less tender. It also tastes cleaner and less vanilla-perfumed, which most people count as an improvement. The cornstarch is doing the emulsifier's job of softening the flour, so do not skip it.

Turning a plain mix chocolate by trading some of the mix for cocoa so the total dry weight stays the same.

Best for

sheet cakes, cupcakes, dump cakes, poke cakes

It works, and the swap-by-volume trick matters: if you just add cocoa on top of a full box, you throw off the ratio of dry to wet and the cake bakes dry and tough. Even done properly, the result is lighter in colour and clearly milder than devils food, with a vanilla note underneath that reads as a cheap chocolate cake rather than a dark one. Adding half a teaspoon of instant espresso powder and using Dutch rather than natural cocoa gets you most of the way there. Best in a poke cake or a sheet cake where frosting and filling carry a lot of the flavour.

A high-fat, low-leavening mix used where a dense, fudgy result is acceptable.

Best for

dump cakes, cake mix cookies, brownie bars, cobbler toppings

Be clear about what you are getting. Brownie mix contains far more sugar and fat and far less leavening than cake mix, which is exactly why it bakes fudgy and dense rather than light. In a layer cake it will fail outright: heavy, greasy, barely risen. In a dump cake, a cookie bar or a cobbler topping, where dense and chewy is a virtue, it works well as long as you cut back the added oil, since the recipe was written expecting a mix with much less fat in it. Adding an extra egg and a quarter teaspoon of baking powder pushes it a little closer to cake if you need lift.

A gluten-free mix used in place of the conventional box.

Best for

layer cakes, cupcakes, sheet cakes, poke cakes

Swaps in cleanly for flavour, with two practical differences. Gluten-free mixes are often packaged at a different weight, frequently smaller, so match by weight rather than by box, and top up with the scratch blend above if you are short. They also absorb liquid more slowly, so the batter thickens as it sits, which means resting it for ten minutes before baking gives a much better crumb and avoids a gummy centre. The texture is slightly more tender and more fragile, and cakes bake a shade faster, so start checking five minutes early.