Vintage Boxed Cake Mixes That You Never See Anymore

At this point, boxed cake mix has been around longer than pretty much everyone on the planet, and it continues to delight to this day. Boxed cake mixes were first invented during the Great Depression by John D. Duff, and like many things born during that troubled time, it came out of a need to scrimp and avoid unnecessary waste. Duff, who operated a molasses company, stumbled across the idea of drying molasses that would otherwise be wasted and putting it into a preformed mix. An American classic was born, and over the years, boxed cake mixes got more and more ambitious, with plenty of flavors and styles cropping up and fizzling out.

Sadly, though, a lot of the best boxed cake mixes are no more, and we think that's a serious shame. Cake mixes made by classic companies like Betty Crocker, Pillsbury, and Duncan Hines used to be way more ambitious and exciting than they are today. Vintage flavors like butterscotch crunch, black walnut, and pink lemonade used to rule the roost, and collaborations between companies like Betty Crocker and Dole led to some pretty wild tastes. A lot of these boxed cake mixes will never see the light of day again, but we can take a trip down memory lane right here.

Walnut cake is a tried and tested winner, but it can often taste fairly plain and samey. Back in the late 1950s, though, Betty Crocker figured out a way to make walnut cake way more exciting, and produced a vintage boxed cake mix that both offered a new spin on a flavor while honoring the roots of traditional country cooking. Betty Crocker Black Walnut Cake Mix was billed as an exciting new flavor by the company, that dug into the traditional tastes of the Midwest. The black walnut flavor, in all of its bittersweet, earthy intensity, gave at-home bakers a way more complex experience than a traditional walnut flavor would.

It was a surprisingly mature and unique offering for the baked goods business, although it still made concessions to those who liked the sweeter things in life. Betty Crocker advertised the cake as being designed to be made with a thick layer of frosting in its center and on the outside, giving it a boost of sweetness that would offset the black walnut.

Sour cream chocolate cake has been around for generations — and if you're in any doubt about this, take a look at a vintage boxed cake mix that was popular back in the 1970s. Duncan Hines Sour Cream Chocolate Cake mix gave home bakers a way to achieve the rich, layered flavors of this popular recipe with minimal effort. All you needed to do was add eggs and oil to the cake mix and whip up the frosting separately. No actual sour cream required here, people: Those flavors were quite literally baked in.

Duncan Hines ran a pretty unique ad campaign for its Sour Cream Chocolate Cake mix, with the company visiting Hershey, Pennsylvania, to have residents try it out for themselves. Known for being the home of Hershey's chocolate, it's clear that Duncan Hines felt the folks there would be able to tell good from bad — and as you might expect, the commercial featured people praising the cake while taking repeated mouthfuls. Unfortunately, the endorsement of the Hershey residents wasn't enough to keep it around for good. Eventually, Duncan Hines Sour Cream Chocolate Cake mix disappeared from stores, and you won't be able to find it today.

We love it when two food companies come together to give us a brand new product. While collaborations between brands can feel pretty modern, they've been going on for a while. Back in the 1960s, we saw such a collab in boxed form when baking giant Betty Crocker and canned food company Dole teamed up to offer customers a brand new pineapple cake mix. The mix created a lurid yellow crumb and promised a refreshing, tropical taste in every bite. It was complemented by a yellow frosting, which was also intended to taste like pineapple.

We can't say exactly how successful Betty Crocker and Dole were in recreating the fruit's flavor in the cake, but it seems like it wasn't an all-time favorite amongst customers. While we're sure that lots of people out there loved this boxed cake mix, it was eventually discontinued and hasn't been recreated by Betty Crocker. Your closest option today is likely Duncan Hines Pineapple Supreme Naturally Flavored Cake Mix, which customers say is excellent for a pineapple upside-down cake.

Honestly folks, we're a little annoyed with today's boxed cake mixes. Sure, they're reliably tasty, but aren't they just a little unadventurous? What happened to the days when you could pick up a box of Pillsbury Pink Lemonade Cake Mix and make a bright pink, towering cake topped with pastel frosting? We live in a different world, y'all.

In 1961, though, this was easy to find. This discontinued Pillsbury cake mix was an angel cake and was given its tallness and fluffy crumb by the copious egg whites in the recipe. In the copy for its advertising, Pillsbury specified that you should be using 14.4 egg whites exactly (which feels a little random given the fact that eggs come in loads of different sizes, but that's just by the by). As for the taste, Pillsbury promised a citrusy, bright flavor that was designed to refresh and comfort simultaneously. You could even buy a box of the frosting on its own if you were so inclined. However, unfortunately for pink lemonade fans, this cake wasn't going to stick around forever. Pillsbury pulled it from its product line, and you'll just have to put up with its standard lemon cake mix these days. We guess you can always put a bit of pink food dye in there, though.

Toffee Swirl cake mix? Honestly, we're sold. This Betty Crocker offering first started appearing in stores in the early 1960s, and its English-themed flavor predated the British Invasion by a good couple of years (hey, we guess that the baking company was ahead of its time). We've gotta say that this cake mix looked like it produced a completely delectable bake. Magazine ads for Betty Crocker Toffee Swirl Cake Mix showed a two-tone crumb, apparently with the darker color tasting of toffee and the lighter color being a standard cake. It's unclear exactly how you'd get that swirl effect, but we'd imagine a toothpick was involved.

Betty Crocker Toffee Swirl Cake Mix was complemented by a rich fudge frosting, which gave the cake even more of a sense of indulgence. In the ads for the cake mix, a heaping slice of it was depicted sitting in front of Big Ben at night, no doubt to evoke cozy British nights spent eating the spoils of your baking. Eventually, though, it seems like the shine wore off on this cake mix, and now it's gone for good. Shall we petition to bring it back?

Bundt cake is pretty much everyone's favorite, and it has been for a while. It was the same back in the 1970s, when Pillsbury had its own line of bundt cake mixes which people absolutely loved. Pillsbury offered a total of five different versions of its bundt cake mix, which it advertised as an affordable way to get a touch of luxury (aided by the cut-out discount coupons it offered in magazines — wow, it was a different time, huh?). There were a bunch of flavors on display here, but our favorite has to be Pillsbury's macaroon-filled version, which created a two-tone effect when folks sliced into the cake. Each box came with three different sachets, with cake, filling, and glaze mix all ready to be prepared, baked, and eaten.

However, all that convenience couldn't possibly last. Pillsbury Bundt Cake Mix eventually went out of fashion, together with bundt cakes themselves, and soon enough it disappeared for good. This doesn't mean that you can't make one with Pillsbury products, and the company itself has recipes on its website for lemon bundt cake created with its current line of cake mixes. That macaroon-filled one is a distant memory, though.

There's one discontinued Betty Crocker cake mix we'll never see again that we wish had stuck around for a little bit longer. Back in the 1970s, the company introduced its Snackin' Cake Mixes to the market, and they were an immediate smash. The idea behind these cake mixes was that they could go from package to oven in just two minutes, with an easy-mix batter that required virtually no work. While other cake mixes required you to throw eggs and oil into the mix, Snackin' Cakes asked for just water and vinegar, and gave you a delicious bake at the end. What could be simpler?

Betty Crocker Snackin' Cakes came in a few different flavors, but its Banana Walnut option was the one we want to try the most. If that wasn't your thing, you could try out its Golden Chocolate Chip or Chocolate Almond flavors. At least, you could until the early 1980s, until Betty Crocker decided that the bubble burst on Snackin' Cakes, and they went to the cake graveyard. Former fans have even contacted the company, receiving replies from Betty Crocker representatives, saying they'd pass on the admirer's love to the head honchos. Exchanges like these probably won't result in them coming back, but we live in hope.

If you love peanut butter, you'll really miss this discontinued Betty Crocker cake. Betty Crocker's Peanut Butter Delight Cake Mix, which first debuted in the mid-1950s, was a thing of beauty. This mix produced a meltingly tender cake which was made with real peanut butter, and it came complete with a frosting mix that provided it with even more moisture. The cake flavor was piggybacking on the popularity of peanut butter at the time, with the 1920s and 30s seeing a serious rise in its appeal as an affordable, protein-rich, tasty snack. Forget your peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, people, the cake version was where it's at.

To be honest, it's pretty wild that this is now considered a vintage flavor that you can't find anymore, considering how popular peanut butter is to this day. Unfortunately, though, Betty Crocker seemingly couldn't justify keeping it around anymore. It's not too hard to make your own peanut butter cake from scratch today, of course, but we'd love it if this cake mix made a reappearance one day soon.

To be honest, folks, we kinda hate that we weren't around in the 1960s. This was the age of some of the wackiest, most delicious cake mixes out there, and a time when food companies were vying to make the most unique options for consumers to try. If you need any proof of that, check out Duncan Hines Butterscotch Crunch Dutch Topping Cake Mix. This cake product combined the best parts of a cake and a Dutch apple pie, which is distinguished by its crispy, streusel-like topping. This crumby consistency gives the pie an added crunchiness and creates great contrast with the pie filling within.

Duncan Hines' ingenious move was to take this topping and put it right on top of a sponge cake. You didn't even have to add it afterward, either: You could bake the topping with the cake itself. The best part was that there was no preparation required for the topping. It came in its own sachet, and you just sprinkled it straight on top of the cake mix. How this cake and topping combo fell out of fashion, we'll never know, but nowadays you won't find this cake mix in stores.

Have you ever tried butter brickle ice cream? If you haven't, we wouldn't blame you — it can be hard to find in stores these days, and carries a distinctly vintage air to it. It's a shame, because butter brickle is super tasty. The flavor was inspired by Butter Brickle candy, a chocolate-covered toffee that was popular during the first half of the 20th century. While the candy eventually disappeared, the combo of toffee pieces and ice cream persisted for a while.

Then came Betty Crocker's Butter Brickle Cake Mix, which appeared in 1966. This cake wasn't just a flavor explosion, but a textural one too. The inside of the cake seemed to be a standard sponge, but it was the frosting that incorporated the butter brickle flavor, by studding its creamy mixture with pieces of crunchy toffee. This might seem like a bit of a niche product, but Betty Crocker Butter Brickle Cake Mix managed to stick around for quite a while. It was a good two decades before it started to lose its popularity, and by around 1990 it was gone.