Can I tell you how much better the holidays are when you have kids? Or in my case, a kid? I’m SO excited to dress Ellie up for her first Halloween, eat tons of food for her first Thanksgiving, and wrap presents to leave under the tree for her first Christmas! I know she’s not even one yet so she won’t remember any of these events, but I’m going to go all out anyway.
Let’s start with Halloween. I bought Ellie her costume before she was born (hellooooo 80% off-after-Halloween-sale! How could I resist?). She’s a little too young to help me in the kitchen right now, but I’m counting down the days until she can wear a mini apron and stand beside me watching cupcakes rise through the oven glass door. 
When that day comes, I’ll have Pillsbury’s Purely Simple mixes to help me out. With a toddler on hand, it’ll be difficult to bake things truly from scratch. I’ll need a little help to get me started and that’s where these mixes come in. It makes everything a little homemade, while giving me more time to spend with family.
Plus, there is so much you can do with these mixes! I love using them in the kitchen. For these simply chocolate cupcakes, I doctored up the normal recipe by adding a couple of my finishing touches. From there, I used Halloween candy to dress up the tops.
Kids will love choosing their favorite Halloween candy to put on top of their very own dessert. Cupcakes are the perfect size for tiny hands to hold and devour. I played it safe with chocolate and peanut butter based candies, but you can be adventurous with taffy, gummies, or even hard candies.
I like using Pillsbury’s Purely Simple mixes because they’re free of preservatives and they don’t use any bleached flour. It’s easy to make them at home and it tastes like every ingredient was thoughtfully mixed in, one by one. 
You can always use the recipe on the back of the box, but if you have a little extra time, you can use this recipe to make it even more personal.
I made the buttercream exactly as listed on the package. Believe it or not, you only need to add butter and water to the mix. That’s it! Just two ingredients that are almost always readily available in your refrigerator.
The result is this deliciously moist, fluffy, and tasteful cupcake. It took me less than half an hour total to make these cupcakes. Yes, that even includes the baking time! That’s faster than doing a load of laundry, going grocery shopping, or running the dishwasher.
Use up that leftover Halloween candy and turn it into gold!
Ingredients
- 1 package Pillsbury Purely Simple Chocolate Cake Mix
- 1 package (3.9 oz) instant chocolate pudding mix
- 2 tbsp dark cocoa powder
- 1 1/2 cup half and half
- 1/4 cup vegetable oil
- 2 eggs
- 1 package Pillsbury Purely Simple Buttercream Frosting Mix, prepared using the directions on the package
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a muffin pan with 18 cupcake liners.
- In a large bowl, mix all of the ingredients together until smooth.
- Evenly distribute the batter into the 18 cupcake liners.
- Bake for 20 minutes, or until toothpick comes out with only a few crumbs.
- Wait until cool and then frost with the buttercream. Top with chopped candy.
You can check out more Pillsbury ideas here:
- Website – http://www.pillsburybaking.com/
- Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/PillsburyBaking
- Pinterest – http://www.pinterest.com/pillsburybaking/
- Instagram – https://instagram.com/pillsburybaking/
This is a sponsored post, but the opinions expressed are my own.
Leave a Reply