I may not like flour-based birthday cakes, but I do love the old timey cake flavours and the artwork on the boxes back when I was a kid. Let’s take a trip down memory lane. 🙂

I think, over my lifetime, I have eaten a slice of every one of these cakes at some point. A few of them are classics home bakers still scuttle back to a few times a year, but the decadent ones are huge throwbacks. They only get made when someone is feeling hardcore nostalgic, or bought from a good bakery when basic cakes won’t cut it.

I remember this Raspberry cake mix like it was yesterday. My aunt bought it to make at our house for one of her daughter’s birthday the year it came out, and she loved pink so it got paired with pink frosting. I can’t remember if I liked it or not, but I remember the standout look of her final cake most of all. And how tickled pink (yes, I went there) my aunt was with her creation.

My mother bought these two often. Every birthday cake was one of these mixes, and decorated by my mother to her tastes. I ate way too many slices of birthday cake in my lifetime given how many siblings I have, so I would never make one of these today.

I’m surprised so many cake flavours endure. They really do. I see the Butter Pecan and the Chocolate Fudge boxes in the grocery store all the time. They wouldn’t be on the shelves if they didn’t consistently sell. Shelf space is like a hairdresser’s chair – it’s there for paying clients only.