Duncan Hines for chocolate. I always used Betty Crocker until I started noticing my cakes were dryer than usual, and forget trying to carve them...such a crumbly mess! So I switched to the DH Devils Food chocolate mix and noticed such a difference....so moist, and dense enough to carve without a huge mess. I still use Betty Crocker for yellow, though.
I would give Pillsbury a try. I (and customers) like Pillsbury when I use a mix. The "chocolate" is really moist and a favorite and the French Vanilla is very good. I know that for years DH was the gold standard. I never cared for Betty Crocker, but that is just my opinion.
I only use DH. I notice a pretty big difference in flavor and moistness when I use any other brand. I've even done cupcakes in the same flavor but different brands just to experiment, and the DH were better, hands down!
I've used Betty Crocker & Duncan Hines. I prefer DH because It works best with the recipes I use. Also when I do have to freeze the cake...DH stays moist after thawed & is still full of flavor. When I froze BC it had a nasty taste almost like cardboard when it thawed.
I haven't tried Pillsbury but I do prefer Duncan Hines over Betty Crocker. I did make a chocolote chip pound cake this weekend that called for a yellow cake mix with pudding in the mix and I discovered that the Betty Crocker brand I had in my pantry read, As always, pudding in the mix, so I used it and it was great. For my decorated cakes I usually use The Cake Mix Doctor (older addition) and Duncan Hines; I also freeze the cakes for just a few days and they are always moist and everybody at church loves them, as do friends and family for whom I do my baking.
I use Betty Crocker because it is safe for my son who has peanut and tree nut allergies. Most of the flavors of DH state on the label that they are processed on equipment that also processes products with peanuts.
I always use Duncan Hines. When I took the Wilton courses several years ago I was lucky enough to have a very well known and respected bakery owner as my instructor. She used DH at her bakery and swore by it. I figure if she built such a reputation as "the" bakery owner in our city on DH cake mixes then it was good enough for me.
My husband bought me several boxes of BC mixes one time because they were in the clearance aisle. They were white and yellow mixes. I used them and didnt notice a difference in taste but they were much fluffier then my DH cakes. I had a heck of a time torting the layers and getting the buttercream smoothed because the cake kept crumbling into my icing. They made outstanding cupcakes, so moist. I cant make cakes out of it though.
I have used Pillsbury twice and Ill never use it again. The first time my daughter wanted to make cupcakes all by herself and she wanted to buy the cake mix and stuff with her own allowance money. My husband took her shopping for the ingredients and she picked out a box of Pillsbury white cake mix. I helped her mix the batter using my normal recipe from the Cake Mix Dr. Everything was the same as always but the cupcakes were terrible. Even though it was a doctored mix all I could taste was this super strong chemical taste. My daughter was the first to speak up about it, she said they tasted weird. You could even smell it. The second time my husband bought a box of their strawberry cake mix because it was on sale. Same thing happened with that cake.
I have used the off brand stuff (Best Choice?) once. I was making a cake for a charity event at a hospital and they bought all the ingredients for the cake and brought them to me. They bought the cheapest junk they could find. It was awful. The cake didnt bake up very well and smelled funny when I cut into it. I was scared to use it so I went out and bought a box of DH mix and used that. Im glad I did because the cake made from the off brand was dry.
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