Cooking out of the BOX

So for the first time in my adult life I am actually making a cake from a box! No, not from scratch with organic, whole wheat flour. I see you rolling your eyes at me. I hear your moaning and groaning from Bradford's first birthday party!
But remember I made up for it with the Celebrity jumbo petifores with fondant icing that next year. And last year we did Cupcake Cottage.
This year I decided to go back to making them myself!
After much blog-reading, web-searching and asking an older lady lots of questions on the cake aisle of Target, I did it! I made a damn boxed cake! It was not without much doctoring!
1. I used milk instead of water
2. I added an extra egg for a total of 4
3. I added a packet of vanilla instant pudding mix and 1t of pure vanilla extract
4. Real melted butter in place of the oil!
5. But I did make real butter cream frosting. I added some sour cream to it to cut the overly sweetness.

So all in all, my "Semi-Homemade" style cupcakes turned out pretty good! Of course the mess is worth just going back to Cupcake Cottage next year!