"Better Than Sex" Cupcakes

For Memorial Day, I hosted a cookout at my house. I provided the hotdogs, hamburgers, and duh... CUPCAKES! The first batch of cupcakes I made was "Better Than Sex" cupcakes. It is yellow cake topped with crushed pineapple, vanilla pudding, whipped cream, coconut, and walnuts. My mom makes the sheet cake version, and it is hands down my favorite cake in the world (OK, who am I kidding? I could live off of cheesecake, but is it really a cake?) I had not seen this done as a cupcake version, so I decided to try it.

I don't know the difference between vanilla and yellow cupcakes. I searched both recipes at allrecipes.com, and I found a few that had nearly the same exact recipe. I decided to use a recipe that was suggested on one of my posts on flickr.com because it claims to be "almost" like box mix, and my mom uses box cake mix in her "Better Than Sex" cake.

ingredients

The batter was similar to box mix in consistency and flavor.

filling the cupsI decided to make the cupcakes king sized so that I'd have room to add the toppings (Also, the Michael's ad in the newspaper had two 40% off coupons this week.) I don't think I'll be making a lot of king sized cupcakes in the future. Some of them turned out nicely, but others were very lumpy because the papers rarely stay round when you put them in the king sized pan.I'm not sure if there was something wrong with the recipe, but the cupcakes had a lot of holes in the top. I know nothing about the science of baking, so if anyone has any explanation it would be appreciated :)I made regular cupcakes with the leftover batter. I put the toppings on them using the "cone" method, which in my opinion turned out better than the king sized cupcakes.The cupcakes did have the flavor of boxed cake mix, but the texture was different. It was not nearly as fluffy as boxed cake. Also, the cake stiffened when refrigerated (Better Than Sex cake has to stay refrigerated because of the toppings), and the boxed cake stays nice and soft.

With all the toppings, the cupcakes were delicious.

If you decide to make these, I recommend using the "cone" method with regular sized cupcakes. Fill the cone with crushed pineapple (make sure to include the pineapple juice to make the cake really moist). Put about a spoonful or two of vanilla pudding on top of the pineapple. Finish with sweetened whipped cream, sweetened coconut, and coarsely chopped walnuts.