I bought a Betty Crocker devils food cake mix as I had previously tried the Betty Crocker chocolate fudge brownie mix which turned out to be absolutely delicious. The devils food cake mix retails for around £2.00 in the supermarkets.
I do normally bake my own cakes, but I decided to give this a go as packet mixes are just an awfull lot quicker and an awful lot easier than making your own, I figured that depending how good this was then it would be handy to just keep one in the cupboard.

This is really easy to make, all you literally have to do is beat the cake mix together with 250ml water, 70ml oil and 3 medium eggs in a bowl and then pour the batter into the your tins and bake. You can beat this with a large wooden spoon or a balloon whisk, but it is much easier with a hand held whisk or in a stand mixer. I just pop all the ingredients in the bowl of my Kitchen Aid stand mixer, using the wire whisk attachment, I then just set it mixing whilst I prepare the trays. Once the trays are prepared I just pour the batter in and then pop them in the oven, less than 10 minutes preparation from start to finish.

The baking instructions on the box are brilliant, it gives the oven temperatures and times for any oven, plus any size and shape of cake tin, and also tells you how what quantities you will get:
Tin Size: Two 20.5 cm (8") sandwich tins, Bake Time: 23-28 mins.
Tin Size: Two 23 cm (9") sandwich tins, Bake Time: 22-27 mins.
Tin Size: 33x23x5 cm (13" x9" x 2") rectangular tin, Bake Time: 27-33 mins.
Tin Size: 24-28 cupcakes (2/3 full), Bake Time: 15-20 mins.
Tin Size: 32-35 fairy cakes, Bake Time: 8-12 mins.

I've used this devils food cake quite a few times now, I do always have a packet in the cupboard, I have made it as a layer cake, and also as cupcakes. I sometimes only use half of the cake mix to make a dozen cupcakes and then keep the other half of the packet for another time. The cake mix does keep for a couple of weeks or so, and it still makes perfect cupcakes the second time around. I obviously add half the added ingredients if I am doing this way, to half the 3 medium eggs I just use 1 extra large egg and this works perfectly.

The devils food cake is absolutely delicious, it is soft and moist and chocolatey, but not sweet or sickly at all. It is light and fluffy and always rises well. The baking times and the quantities that the mixture makes are spot on too. There is always a divine warm chocolatey smell dridting from the oven when you bake this. It tastes as good as home made, you would never in a million years suspect that this came from a packet.