Easiet Best Tasting Pumpkin Cupcakes EVER!

These are the best cupcakes I have ever had! They're so good I made them for my October 1st wedding this year. Everyone always loves them and none have a clue how easy and how much a cheat to make them. I'll share my secret with you guys though. You'll love me for it!

Ingredients

1 White Cake Mix
1 3/4 cup Pumpkin Puree (or a can of pumpkin)
2 tsp Pumpkin Pie Spice
1 Egg
18 tbsp (each cupcake = 1 tbsp) Duncan Hines Cream Cheese Frosting

** Note: If the batter is too thick, add some milk or water to thin it out. When I made my pumpkin puree, I added some water to the blender to help it blend, so it wasn't as thick as canned pumpkin. **

Step 1: Make Some Puree (or Skip If You Have Canned)

First I roasted a small pumpkin for pumpkin puree. It's so easy to do and it made quite a lot of pumpkin puree. Just take a small pumpkin and slice it in two. Then scoop out all the seed and strings. I save the seeds and roast them for a snack (and garnish the cupcakes).

Side note: To roast seeds wash, toss in a bit of oil and salt and bake at 275F for 20 minutes or until slightly brown. Watch them, they burn easy!

Then take the pumpkin halves and place them skin side up in a shallow baking dish or cook sheet (unlike my photo shows). Add a few cm of water to the pan and bake for 20 minutes at 350F.

Once their tender pull them out and let them cool until you can handle them. Scrap the flesh from the skin into a bowl. Now you can mash the flesh or do what I did and stick it in a blender. Makes it smoother so you don't have chunks left in your puree.

Now just stick the puree in a air tight container or mason jar and keep in the fridge for up to 5 days. See, easy! I will admit it doesn't smell fantastic but remember pumpkin spice makes everything nice.

Step 2: Lets Get Mixing!

Now on to the cupcakes! I used a cake mix from Dollarama for this. I know. Cake mix is cheating and Dollarama cake mix?! Gross! Trust me ok? You'll be adding so much of your own flavor to it buying a more expensive cake mix just doesn't make sense. You won't taste the cake mix at all. With that said, here's the recipe.

Preheat oven to 350F.

In a medium size bowl pour in white cake mix, pumpkin, pumpkin spice and egg. Stir until just combined.

Line a muffin pan with medium sized paper liners. Fill each cup almost all the way up but so you can see a cm of the white liner at the top.

Step 3:

Bake for 20-25 minutes. They're ready when you can put a toothpick in and pull it out clean. Let cool completely.

Take one tablespoon of frosting and top the muffin/cupcake with it and spread with a knife evenly over the top. I like to take a roasted pumpkin seed and just stick on the top for some decoration and it shows what kind they are (front of tutorial shows the finished produced). Enjoy!

Number of Servings: 18