Today brings us to the end of Cupcake Week. I hope you had as much fun as I did with it!

No matter which cupcake is your favorite, you can make them all yours with a few simple tricks. I’m a big fan of not letting it be obvious that I just use a boxed cake mix (because we all know baking from scratch really is better), but I like things to be quick. As much as I love to bake, I don’t love standing over a stove for two hours while I painstakingly do something that could have been done with a boxed mix.

But turning that boxed mix into something that will leave everyone wondering where I learned to bake is always good.

Sprinkle On Top

The easiest way to make your cupcakes yours is to add something on top. It could be sprinkles, a cookie, graham cracker, chocolate, fruit, anything. Stick blueberries into the icing on a blueberry cupcake, sprinkle a s’mores cupcake with graham cracker crumbs, drizzle caramel over a dulce de leche cupcake, or add sprinkles for a little extra fun.

This is easy because it doesn’t require any extra planning. You can decide to decorate half the cupcakes one way and the other half another way. You can let your guests decorate their own (a big hit when there are kids involved). You can add anything you want and aren’t limited by what will survive the oven.

Plus, how fun is that? I mean really, who wants a plain chocolate cupcake when you can have a chocolate cupcake drizzled with extra chocolate and a peanut butter cup wedge on top? Well, okay, I’d eat them all, but you know what I’m saying!

Mix It In

Another simple way to customize your cupcakes is to put a surprise inside. I like doing this when I want people to think they’re just getting a regular old cupcake. It adds something special to it that surprises you on your first bite. Obviously, this is going into the oven so you might have to be careful. Keep an eye on your cupcakes to make sure whatever you add works well.

There are tons of things you can put in a cupcake. Some work better than others so you might want to test out a pan before you commit to the whole batch. Then again, how can you go wrong with cupcakes? Add candy cane pieces (small, like a crushed candy cane) in chocolate cupcakes for a holiday treat. Put an Oreo on the bottom of chocolate or vanilla cupcakes for a crunchy flavor burst (can do the same with Nilla Wafers, graham cracker crumbs, chocolate chip cookies – experiment with it!). My kids love adding sprinkles to vanilla cupcake batter. I’m partial to peanut butter cups in a chocolate cupcake. And of course, you can do fruit or coffee or mint, really, you can have a lot of fun creating your very own favorite cupcake!

Paint It On

I’m a fan of buttercream frosting. I could eat it with a spoon (and have)! If you baked a raspberry lemonade cupcake, you might want something other than a standard vanilla icing though. Icing isn’t quite as easy to change as cake, though. It takes a little more finessing and planning ahead, because you might need something else from the store. Changing the color is easy, but changing the flavor isn’t.

I highly recommend looking up a recipe if you want a different icing flavor, but don’t let that stop you from experimenting! For the most part, you can start with a typical buttercream icing, then adjust it slightly to get the flavor you want.

For strawberry icing, it can be as simple as adding strawberry syrup and using strawberry milk. For peanut butter icing, add peanut butter to the mix. Mocha icing requires chocolate and instant espresso. Remember that you want bake your icing so anything you use needs to be edible as is.

Eat Up!

Now I’m starving and really want cupcakes! I see a chocolate peanut butter cupcake with peanut butter icing and a drizzle of chocolate syrup on top in my future. Or maybe Oreo on the bottom chocolate cupcake with vanilla frosting and Oreo crumbles on top. Ooh, no. I want a s’mores cupcake – graham cracker crumbs on the bottom, chocolate cupcake, and marshmallow buttercream icing with a drizzle of chocolate and graham cracker crumbs sprinkled on top. Yeah, that’s the one!

Which cupcake are you going to try first?

Men had only ever brought me trouble. Cupcakes were so much better. But he made it hard to choose. The yummy man or the scrumptious cupcake? I wasn’t sure anymore. 

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Who doesn’t love cupcakes? I mean, really. Unless there’s a medical reason, I don’t know anyone who won’t grab a cupcake and happily eat it when there’s one around. If you read my last post, to kick off Cupcake Week, then you know I’m a fan of using a boxed cake mix for my cupcakes. Yeah, I know from scratch is better, but, as my kids will tell you, I’m lazy. I like something quick that only requires a little effort to pull together.

But sometimes I want something a little different.

I’ll confess, my favorite cupcakes are chocolate with vanilla buttercream frosting. It’s simple and classic and so very delicious. I think if I had them more, I’d be a fan of Oreo or s’mores or chocolate peanut butter cupcakes. Cookie dough. Ooh, Twix. No, no! Cream cheese brownie cupcakes!

I might have a problem.

Here’s the thing… There aren’t boxes out there for every cupcake flavor you can imagine. If you like to experiment, you might be lightyears ahead of me on this adventure, but I don’t take the time to bake that much. I think I need to change that!

If you’re like me and you like to modify the boxed cake mix to create your own new & delicious cupcake flavor, it’s just as easy as the boxed mix. These are my favorites…

Vanilla Boxed Cake

I never use yellow cake, but I think that’s a personal preference. If I use food coloring, the yellow cakes never look right, so I stick with vanilla or white cake mix as my go-to mixes. I prepare the cake mix like we talked about on Monday, then I make a few changes to fit what I want my cupcakes to taste like.

Fruit is easy to add to vanilla cake mix because the flavors won’t compete. My daughter loves strawberry and blueberry. Dice up strawberries and add them to the batter, or add whole blueberries. You can add almost any fruit to a cake mix. Even better, save some to put on top!

Chocolate chips are simple and delicious. My husband likes chocolate, but he prefers vanilla, so a chocolate chip cupcake works well for him. Other options would be butterscotch chips (yum!), peanut butter, white chocolate, or nuts. Any of them will work really well in a vanilla cupcake and give you a little surprise when you bite in. My kids love adding sprinkles to the batter!

Changing the flavor of the vanilla cupcake is easy to do and can really make your cupcakes stand out. The vanilla is a good base for a lot of other flavors. Add maple or almond extract to add those flavors in a subtle way. Use lemon extract and zest or orange or lime to make it stand out more. Add pumpkin pie spices for a fall flavor or a different pudding mix to bring things to a whole new level. Think about what your icing is going to be and compliment the flavors. You’ll have everyone asking how you made it!

Chocolate Boxed Cake

I love chocolate. There’s nothing wrong with chocolate in my opinion, but I know there are times when it’s nice to change things up a bit!

You really can’t change the flavor of chocolate, but you can bump it up. Add chocolate chips to make it even sweeter. Throw in some dark chocolate chunks for a rich surprise or white chocolate chips for a visual delight. You can even throw in colored chocolate wafers or shavings, but that’ll end up more for the visual effect than the flavor. One thing I’ve read, but haven’t tried, is to add pop (or soda as some of you say) to the batter. Chocolate root beer float? How about a chocolate cherry coke?

Adding things to the batter can make chocolate that much better. A dollop of a mixture of cream cheese, sugar, and an egg on top (before baking) will settle in the middle for a rich surprise. You can do the same with marshmallows or a mixture of marshmallow fluff and vanilla icing. Crumble up cookie pieces or candy bars and add that to the mix. Really, the possibilities are only limited by your taste buds and imagination!

Make It New & Delicious

There are options out there. You can fall down a rabbit hole of possibilities if you search Pinterest. You might be starving by the time you start baking! People are so incredibly creative out there. I like to experiment a little bit, and I think today might be a good day to do that. I’m heading to the store. I’ll see what I can find!

How are you going to change your basic boxed cake mix?

I didn’t have time for a guy. I was already overwhelmed by my job and the coworker from hell. But he wouldn’t take no for an answer. He kept asking me out until I had no choice but to say yes. 

Available now for FREE!

Ebook on Amazon | Kobo | iBooks | B&N | Google Play| Smashwords