Im sure this has been posted a million times but for everyone that uses cake mix and doesnt bake from scratch, could you please let me know how you improve your cake? What do you add? What do you change? What brand of cake mix do you like best? All answers greatly appreciated. THANKS!

I know a lot of CC's will disagree with me but I love Duncan Hines chocolate cake mixes. I use Betty Crocker white cake mixes.

I add skim milk instead of the required water, a box of pudding mix (flavours can be varied depending on flavour of cake mix) and an extra egg along with the required oil.

Even though the Duncan Hines already has pudding in the mix I still add all the ingredients listed above.

I use Duncan Hines with the cake mix extender mostly.

http://forum.cakecentral.com/cake_recipe-1977-Cake-Mix-extender.html

and flavored coffee cream-powdered.

I like the Pillsbury white cake mix and I use the enhanced cake recipe from this site. It is always good. I tried the white cake mix from Aldi stores (not sure if they are nationwide or not) and it was delicious. With the Aldi mix, I used the directions on the box except I used half milk and half water and then I added one teaspoon of sour cream.

I always use DH. I get rave reviews about the taste of my cakes. I don't add anything. I have never used the extender recipe. Is this used to improve taste or amount of cake? Curious.

I'm with JILBRY, what is the point? Is it to fill up the pans more? Or taste? I'm curious too.

I love almost all the recipes from The Cake Mix Doctor cookbook. I especially love the "Better than ?? Chocolate Cake", since it always gets "oh my gawd this is so good" reviews!
All of the basic recipes in that book are terrific. Unlike other recipes that call for extra oil or butter, these recipes are not oily -- more like moist from pudding. Many of the recipes include sour cream, which lends a very homemade taste to the finished cake.
Also, I used to use Pillsbury mixes, but have now switched to Waldbaum's store brand (here in NYC). I see no difference in taste, but the store brand blends smoother, while Pillsbury can sometimes blend lumpy, which leaves air holes in the baked cake.
HTH!