The $1 Aldi Grocery I’m Stocking in My Pantry All Spring

Keeping a pantry stocked with staples goes beyond spices, dried pasta, and canned beans. Cake mix is among the supermarket shortcuts I always make sure to never run out of. The convenience and pleasure of stirring a store-bought mix, oil, and eggs and soon thereafter serving a cake should not be underestimated. (Even chefs love cake mix!)

Aldi is a smart place to prep your pantry, fridge, and freezer on a budget. The discount grocer sells competitively priced staples, like sugar, butter, brownie mixes, ice cream, and more, which makes whipping up easy desserts even easier. This season I’m heading to Aldi to stock up on the one pantry staple that will make serving sweets surprisingly simple: Aldi’s Baker’s Corner Cake Mix. And the best part is that every box is just $0.99.

What’s So Great About Baker’s Corner Cake Mixes?

Aldi only has white and devil’s food cake mixes currently in stock, but be on the lookout for yellow cake mix, as the chain has carried Baker’s Corner yellow cake mix in the past. (We’ve got you covered if you want to learn more about the difference between white, yellow, and vanilla cakes.) You’ll pay two to three times as much for similar boxed cake mixes at other grocery stores. That’s a deal you won’t want to pass up.

Cake mixes contain all of the dry ingredients you’ll need for the cake, like flour, leaveners (baking soda and/or baking powder), and salt. They also have fat and special starches that give the cakes the irresistible, spongy texture they are known for. The ones made with Aldi’s Baker’s Corner mixes are moist, full of flavor, and bake into cakes you can be proud to serve. While you can follow the instructions on the box, you can also try these smart tips to improve upon the basic bake like replacing the oil with butter and water with milk, and increasing the egg count.

What’s the Best Way to Use Baker’s Corner Cake Mixes?

Baking a celebratory cake is the obvious thing to do with a box of cake mix, but it isn’t the only thing. Here at The Kitchn, we are big fans of dump cakes — the simple desserts that require just a few ingredients, supermarket shortcuts, and no mixing. Don’t worry if you can’t find yellow cake mix — white cake mix works well in our recipes for apple dump cake, blueberry dump cake, and peach dump cake.

This pantry staple can also be used to make a variety of cake mix cookies with just two eggs, a half-cup of vegetable oil, and mix-ins. Or try an impressive — yet easy — chocolate trifle made of prepared devil’s food cake mix that’s been cut into cubes and layered between pudding, whipped topping, and crushed cookies. Another refreshingly retro idea is to serve a poke cake made with the white cake mix, strawberry gelatin, and whipped topping for a light and fruity treat.

Find it in stores: Aldi’s Baker’s Corner Cake Mixes, $0.99 for 15.25 ounces

What pantry finds are you buying from Aldi this spring? Share your favorites in the comments below.