The Best Birthday Cupcakes

Chris from Kansas's Note:

These cupcakes have a firmer texture, more like a poundcake and wonderful flavor. After making these, I have a hard time eating the plain ones from just cake mix. Everyone I have made these for loves them. The recipe is from the Cupcake Doctor.

• Total Time: 30 mins
• Prep Time: 10 mins
• Cook Time: 20 mins

Ingredients:

Yield: 24 cupcakes

• 24 paper cupcake liners , for cupcake pans
• 1 (18 ½ ounce) package plain butter recipe cake mix
• 1 (8 ounce) package reduced-fat cream cheese , at room temperature
• ½ cup sugar
• ½ cup water
• ½ cup vegetable oil
• 4 large eggs
• 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
• frosting , of your choice (optional)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Line cupcake pans with paper liners.
3. Place all ingredients in a large mixing bowl and blend on low speed with an electric mixer for 30 seconds. Scrape sides of bowl; increase mixer speed to medium and beat for 1 1/2 to 2 minutes more. The batter should be smooth and thickened.
4. Fill each cup 2/3 full and place in oven.
5. Bake the cupcakes until they are golden and spring back when lightly pressed with your finger, about 15 to 20 minutes.
6. Remove pans from oven and cool on wire rack for 5 minutes before removing cups from pans. Cool completely before frosting.
7. Eat as is or frost as desired.

Reviews

[ChefLizD]

Fabulous! We made these for my son's birthday party. Frosted them with white frosting and used red gel frosting to make "stitches" for baseball cupcakes. Very cute and very yummy. Thank you for posting!

[smellyvegetarian]

This was a great recipe! I made them for DS's 3rd birthday this weekend and they were very well received. FWIW this recipe works great with chocolate cake mix (still added the vanilla but may try espresso in the future), and it works fine as a full sized cake as well. I used about 3/4 of the batter in a Spider Man cake pan and the rest in muffin cups--this makes a very fluffy batter that goes pretty far. I will be making these again this week for his school party--thanks so much for posting!!

[WW Girl]

Loved this cake! It was easy to decorate and very tasty. It does remind me of pound cake, but not quite the same. This was a dream cake to decorate. Very compact....and took the frosty well. I even lifted the cake with my hands to move it and it did not break. The hubby tried it verses just the ordinary box mix (used for cupcakes) and preferred it. Yummy! I am so glad I made it for my son's first birthday party!