I was reading a blog last week, and saw that the blogger (I forget whose page I was on) made a cake out of store-bought cake mix, canned pumpkin and her choice of spices. This looked so easy that I had to try it myself. I decided to make cupcakes to take to work.

I used a white cake mix, one can of pureed pumpkin, and my version of pumpkin pie spice (cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and allspice.) The cupcakes turned out pretty well!

They were so good that I bought more ingredients to make more. This time, I got white, carrot, and spice flavored cake mix to try a little something different. My awesome friend Abbey also brought me a hand mixer as a house warming present! Between the addition of the spice flavored cake mix and the hand mixer, the second set of cupcakes turned out amazing!!

I put my Healthy Pumpkin Spice Butter on one and it became epic. Yes. I said epic. I wish there was a way to share it with you through the screen!!

So I decided to put the two together, and make cupcakes filled with pumpkin butter!

***That was a couple of months ago. Since then, I have purchased a Kitchen Aid Mixer, so I’ve been baking a lot more! I decided to go ahead and try making the Pumpkin Butter Filled cupcakes, because I’ve been so excited to try it! I have just been preoccupied with the holidays, and work, and life in general.

The only difference between these and the previous cupcakes is that I used a vanilla flavored cake mix from Trader Joes instead of the one I used previously.

First step was to make the Pumpkin Spice Butter:

Second step was to make the muffin batter and divide it into 12 cupcake papers in a muffin tin:

Then, I put the Pumpkin Spice Butter into a piping bag with a metal tip:

Next, I baked the muffins for 8 minutes, then removed them from the oven. I pushed the metal tip of the piping bag into the middle of each muffin, and piped in enough to make the muffin expand just slightly (you have to play around with this so you don’t make them explode!)

Then I put them back in the oven for the rest of their baking time. (12 more minutes)

Look how purtyful they are!!! They are just as yummy as they are pretty!

I thought the cupcakes were good before….now, they are just over the top ridiculous!

Next time, I won’t be as shy when piping the filling into the muffin. I wasn’t sure how far into the muffin to go since I had never done this before. They still turned out amazing, nonetheless!

I will definitely be making these again! I will probably wait until fall, though. I think it might be fun to do the same with apple instead of pumpkin puree. What do you guys think??

What are you baking this week?

What is your favorite thing to bake?

Did you join any New Year’s resolution or or workout challenge this month? Which one??

Happy Trails!

Stacey