Dr Oz: Healthy Boxed Cake Bake Off
Doctor Oz had you send in your healthy cake recipes made from boxed cakes. He received thousands of entries. Out of those thousands, Dr Oz picked the best 3 to complete in his very first healthy boxed cake bake off. With the help of Celebrity Chef, Aaron, “Big Daddy” McCargo, Dr Oz picked his favorite healthy recipe. You should also try Dr Oz’s Stromboli Recipe from earlier in the show!
Dr Oz: Pina Colada Cupcake Recipe

Dr Oz held a healthy Box Cake Mix competition with a pina colada cake, dark chocolate berry cheesecake and a olive oil zucchini cake. Yummy!
Ingredients
1 Box store-bought Super Moist White Cake mix
½ C light coconut milk
1-1/2 Cans of crushed pineapple (20 oz) (replaces oil eggs)
1 box of sugar free, fat free vanilla pudding mix (1.5 oz)
12 oz container of light whipped topping (defrosted)
coconut flakes
3 C skim milk
Directions
1. Preheat oven at 350°F.
2. Line 2 muffin tins with cupcake liners.
3. Mix boxed cake with 1 can of crushed pineapple (with juice).
4. Pour batter to fill 2/3 of cupcake liners.
5. Bake for 18-23 minutes.
6. Remove from oven and allow cupcakes completely cool.
**Prepare vanilla pudding according to directions. Add ½ can crushed pineapple with juice and mix thoroughly. Top the cupcakes with pudding first and then whipped topping. Garnish with coconut flakes and refrigerate for 2 hours (or overnight).
Big Daddy said it wasn’t too sweet and had the right amount of fruit and goodies. Will this one win?
Dr Oz: Dark Chocolate Berry Layer Cheesecake Recipe
Ingredients
1 box store-bought Devil’s food cake mix
4 egg whites
½ C unsweetened apple sauce (+ 1 Tbsp olive oil)
Cheese Filling
¼ C part skim ricotta cheese
1 ½ oz melted dark chocolate (You know Dr Oz loves his dark chocolate!)
1 packet of sugar substitute
Orange zest
1 Tbsp plain yogurt (non-fat)
Fresh Sweetened Berries
Mix of any berries (blue berries, black berries, raspberry etc..)
1 tsp fresh squeezed lemon juice
Lemon zest
1 packet of sugar substitute
Directions
1. Whisk all the filling ingredients together (until combined and smooth.)
2. Bake cake according to box instructions (but using the new ingredients listed above.)
3. Layer the cake, cheese filling and berries
4. For texture, finish with some toasted almond slivers and dark chocolate shavings.
Big Daddy and Dr Oz tried it. It reminded Big Daddy of one of his fave chocolate desserts. There was a lot of chocolate, and he liked that. Big Daddy also liked the density of the cake.
Dr Oz: Olive Oil Zucchini Cake Recipe
Ingredients
1 box Classic Yellow cake mix
3 eggs
1 C water
¼ C olive oil
¼ C Greek style yogurt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 Tbsp cinnamon
1tsp ground ginger
1 tsp allspice
¼ tsp. Himalayan pink salt
1 Tbsp molasses
1 small zucchini grated finely (about 1 cup)
2 carrots grated finely (about 1 cup)
1 C toasted walnuts (chopped fine in mini-processor)
1/3 C cup coconut (grated and unsweetened)
Frosting
12 oz neufchatel
¼ C confectioner’s sugar
¼ C pure maple syrup
Lemon zest
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
1 tsp vanilla extract
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
2. Combine cake mix, water, eggs, olive oil and yogurt (mix for about 2 minutes.)
3. Add spices, zucchini, carrots, walnuts, and coconut
4. Blend thoroughly.
5. Pour into 2 8″ cake pans (greased and lined with parchment).
6. Bake for 30-35 minutes.
Enjoy!
Big Daddy liked this cake and chose the zucchini cake as the winner! The baker won the coveted gold plated cake dish trophy. (To me, this one didn’t look as good but maybe I’m just biased because it had the word zucchini in the title-yuck!)
s. d. stewart says
These 3 efforts of low calorie/fat/sugar recipes sounded great! – as well as being a tough job for judges to decide upon as the best one.
I’m not sure how to save the recipes, as so far I’ve chosen to not get on the Facebook or Twitter thing. With all identity theft happening, I reluctantly included an email address, as I feel I should be able to trust this site, correct or no??
Judy Fazio says
Hi!
I’ve been copy & pasting the recipes into microsoft word program. There I edit and then print them off to go into my Dr. Oz cookbook binder. You could also save them in a computer folder if you choose. Hope this helps you.
Rosanna says
I’m concerned about the ingredients in the cake mix that are not natural…is there cause for my concern? Thanks.
Janice Russotti says
I share the above concern about cake mix ingredients not being natural, so I think I will try using an organic cake mix with no GMO ingredients which I saw at our local food co-op. You could probably find organic cake mixes in the natural section of the grocery store also.
Staci says
I only just saw this page now so I’m a little late but this segment really bothered me. I didn’t like that all the cake mixes they showed contain hydrogenated oils. Dr Oz is where i first learned of the dangers of trans fats so to see him promoting and eating cakes containing hydrogenated oils really made me cringe. It especially bothered me that one of the winning recipes contained Cool Whip which is anything but healthy – mostly sugar, transfats and high fructose corn syrup. I think the producers could have done a better job before calling these cakes “healthy”.
Rosanna says
Hi – did I read somewhere on this site that this is not the same Dr. Oz as the famous one we know? If so, it would explain why the “box cakes”, as I don’t think the real Dr. Oz would have ok’d these recipes. Have to do a little research to confirm this.
Dr Oz Fans says
Rosanna, wellbuzz.com is not affiliated with Dr Oz himself. We are just the largest fan website for Dr Oz, so we cover everything relating to the famous doctor including what he talks about on the Dr Oz TV show (which is where this came from).
Rosanna says
Thanks for clarifying….I was pretty sure he wouldn’t have had anything personally to approve of using the boxed cake mixes with the artificial ingredients.
Dr Oz Fans says
Well I guess you should be shocked in that case… because he did make these ox cake recipes on his show.
Rosanna says
Janice i am very surprised that Dr. Oz did use them as part of his TV shown & shame on him…