When I made these the other day I wrote on Facebook that we were having “pumpkin muffin cupcake things” for dessert, and one of my friends, well, I don’t know if she was really making fun of me calling them that, but it’s a pretty funny name. Still, I think that’s what they are.
The original recipe, another one of those that’s famous on Pinterest, called them muffins, but it’s made with cake mix. Clearly actually a cupcake. As Honest Toddler would tell you, same thing.
The Original
The original post I got this idea from was from Sweet Verbena, and all you do is combine a can of pumpkin with a box of yellow cake mix and bake at 350 in muffin tins (she says 20 minutes, mine took 25, but I did change the recipe a little).
Sounds good, right? Well, it is, but I couldn’t leave it quite that simple.
My Alterations
First off, I knew I wanted it to have some spice, so I sprinkled a bunch of apple pie spice into the mixing bowl — maybe a teaspoon? (Of course you can use pumpkin pie spice if you have it; I think they’re really the same thing. In a pinch, just some cinnamon and nutmeg.)
And we love nuts in our muffin cupcake things in this family, so I also threw in a half cup of chopped pecans. More recent iterations include dark chocolate chips, but not nuts.
Now that I’ve made this recipe for several years, I also add eggs. My cake mix called for three but I added two and that felt like enough liquid to me. If you’re short on eggs add the oil or a little water instead. I just feel like it needs more liquid to help it come together.
I have to tell you, these things are pretty ugly. Because there’s no real liquid it’s hard to make a smooth batter, so I didn’t bother.
The fact is, they’re yummy no matter what they look like. They taste pretty much exactly like you’d expect. Like pumpkin cake. With absolutely no effort at all.
That’s exactly what I need. If you do, too, give this a try.
Use it as dessert, then have them for breakfast the next day. No judging here; that’s what we did.
