While I was trying all of these for the first time with everyone, the taste test wasn't blind for me since I had to package up and serve the cakes. But since I haven't had boxed cake in a while, I truly went in with very little preconceived notions of each brand.

You'll also notice that a few cakes received the same average rating. When that happened, I either sifted through comments to determine the winner between the two or acted as a tie-breaker.

The baking instructions and ingredient additions for Jiffy also strayed from the others. There was no need for the addition of any fat, just one egg, and 1/2 cup cold water, and the instructions were to beat on medium speed for four whole minutes. The lack of fat really threw me off since that's what contributes to the moisture and crumb of a cake. So no/less fat means a tighter crumb and a dry cake. Vegetable shortening was listed as ingredient, which is pretty standard for most cake mixes, but it could be that Jiffy puts more into their dry mix. I also noticed some brown specks in the batter, and that's when I saw that flaxseeds were also listed as an ingredient. Why? I have no idea.

The preparation for the Whole Foods cake was closest to Trader Joe's in that they both called for the addition of milk rather than water. The rest of the ingredients and additions were pretty standard including three eggs and 1/4 cup vegetable oil. I did notice that the batter felt a little runnier and thinner than the others, and it didn't hit me with that typical sweet yellow cake smell.

What I did like about this batter was that it called for a stick of melted butter rather than oil, so I knew it was going to be RICH. However, because of the lack of oil, I was a little afraid it wouldn't be as moist as the more "traditional" brands. (Vegetable oil 100% has a time and place depending on the cake.)

You'll notice that these next three cakes all have the same exact ingredient additions: 1 cup water, three eggs, and 1/2 cup vegetable oil. They also contain the same amount of dry mix. For Duncan Hines, the dry mix looked a bit like Jiffy in both color and texture.

When I was mixing this, I immediately could smell that super sweet cake mix smell, and the batter was yellow yellow. Obviously, these all had food dye in them, but it looked like Pillsbury had mixed up the most vibrant color.

Betty Crocker's batter looked almost identical to Pillsbury's (with a little less yellow), so initially, I thought these two would have very little difference when baked. Don't get me wrong, they were similar, but Betty slightly nudged out the competition.