Can I Sub Jello Gelatin For Jello Pudding?
Baking By wyowolf Updated 19 Nov 2012 , 5:35pm by heysugar504


Powdered Jello gelatin is about 85% sugar and 10% gelatin by weight. Weight of flavour/colour 5%. Primary function in cake batter is like sugar, and flavour/color come along for the ride.
Instant pudding mix has sugar and modified starch, harder to give proportions. Starch has been cooked and freeze dried to reconstitute into a pudding "instantly" and it grabs water as soon as liquid is added. It holds the moisture better in baked cake. It also decreases the effective gluten content causing a more tender cake crumb.
NO they aren't interchangeable. The cakes will be different.

It could depend on the recipe. If it's a scratch recipe that calls for pudding, then no for reasons stated above. However if you are adding it to a mix, then I have interchanged them successfully in the past to have different flavor combinations that I could not get with the puddings. I'm sure this is because the cake mixes have so much stuff already in there that the stability is not effected, but I don't really know the science behind it for sure.

I should have mentioned I'm working with a doctored cake mix, not a scratch recipe.
Stsapph, have you used them interchangeably in a doctored cake mix recipe? The type where you add eggs, sour cream, pudding (hence my issue)?
BakingIrene, I'm glad to know that they are NOT interchangeable in a scratch recipe. Thank you for that advice!


I have interchanged them in doctored mix recipes and had wonderful results. I was converting a lemon cake to key lime. Since there is no key lime pudding, I used lime jello, It was wonderful! Texture was almost the same as the original recipe and the flavor was amazing.

I have interchanged them in doctored mix recipes and had wonderful results. I was converting a lemon cake to key lime. Since there is no key lime pudding, I used lime jello,.
Hi, so you used a lemon cake mix and added powder lime jello?
Thank you!

I know this is old, but I used a white cake mix, key lime yogurt, and lime jello. Worked out wonderfully! It was derived from the Cake Mix Doctor's Lemon Lovers cake.
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