You Can Turn Any Muffin Mix Into A Quick Cake

Whether you're placed in charge of making a last-minute birthday cake, need to bring something sweet to an event, or are just dealing with a hankering for cake, we've got good news. If you have a humble box of muffin mix stashed in the pantry, you're not out of luck. If you've ever made a fluffy chocolate chip muffin recipe that came out tasting suspiciously like a cupcake, or a spice cake that basically tasted like a muffin, you might not be surprised to hear that you can pretty easily convert a muffin mix recipe into a cake recipe. Some Redditors even allege that boxed muffin mix and boxed cake mix use the same base ingredients, anyway, and there are recipes for making muffins out of cake mix, too.

However, there is a real difference between muffins and cupcakes that might surprise you. For one, cakes usually have more fat, sugar, and eggs than muffins. For two, the way the ingredients are mixed together is different as well — cakes are mixed for longer, so they have a tighter crumb, and muffins tend to have the dry ingredients and wet ingredients mixed separately, then get stirred together just until mixed. That being said, you really can just bake muffin mix batter in a cake pan and top it with frosting, and no one will be the wiser. But there's actually more than one way to turn a boxed muffin mix into a cake.

If you want to turn muffin mix into a cake, there are a few different routes you can take. You can simply make a batch of muffins from a box of muffin mix, then frost them. Blueberry muffins topped with a classic buttercream frosting recipe, chocolate muffins with chocolate frosting, bran muffins spread with an easy cream cheese frosting recipe — you get the picture. They're basically cupcakes.

You can also try adjusting the ingredients called for in the muffin mix to make them more cake-like. For instance, Betty Crocker's Chocolate Chip Muffin Mix calls for water, vegetable oil, and eggs. You could double the amount of vegetable oil called for (or use half oil, half melted butter) and double the eggs, for a richer batter that will be more like a traditional cake once baked. For muffin mixes that call for just water, you can swap the water for milk for a richer taste.

Muffin mix can be baked in a regular cake pan, or a bundt cake pan, too. It will take longer to cook than if you were using a muffin tin, so keep a close eye on things. Then, frost as usual, and no one will guess you actually used a muffin mix to make your cake. You can use these from-scratch muffin recipes everyone will love and convert them into cakes, too — just switch up the pan, adjust baking time as necessary, and don't forget the frosting finish.