Cinnamon Toast Crunch cupcakes

Recently, my friend Nikki made these for Superbowl and shared the recipe with me. They are FANTASTIC! While the original recipe is below, there are several suggestions for changes. First, no need to put the crushed cereal in the batter. It doesn’t always lead to good results. Some have found the bits of cereal to get very hard. Also, if you decide to put the crushed cereal in the frosting rather than on top, it can make the cereal soggy and the frosting with an odd texture. I upped the cinnamon in the recipe and just dusted the tops with crushed cereal and cinnamon sugar mixture. Also, either cream cheese frosting it butter cream frosting works great here!

Enjoy!

Ingredients:
Cinnamon Cake:
3 eggs
1/3 cup oil
¾ cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
¾ cup sour cream
Vanilla Cake Mix (not white cake mix)-I used from scratch basic vanilla cake batter here and just mixed in the cinnamon.
1 ½ teaspoon cinnamon
(There used to be cereal pieces in the batter, but that has been removed due to comments saying it’s better without it)

Cinnamon Toast Crunch Buttercream:
8 oz cream cheese, softened
½ cup butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups powdered sugar
2/3 cup Cinnamon Toast Crunch powder
(Crush the cereal in a bag and then sift out 2/3 cup)
Milk as needed to thin out frosting
Cinnamon sugar mixture (I used the cinnamon sugar mixture shaker we bought permafrost at the store)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line pans with 20-22 cupcake liners.
(I made my own vanilla batter then added in cinnamon) use whatever you prefer)
In a large bowl, gently combine eggs, oil, buttermilk and vanilla.Mix in sour cream.Add cake mix and cinnamon and mix until smooth.Stir in lightly crushed cereal.
Fill cupcake liners ¾ full and bake for 15-18 minutes, or until an inserted knife comes out clean.

Buttercream:
Beat cream cheese and butter until fluffy. Add Cinnamon Toast Crunch powder. (i omitted and just pit on top) Add vanilla and powdered sugar. Adjust the consistency using milk if it is too thick.
Pipe onto cooled cupcakes and top with cinnamon sugar and Cinnamon Toast Crunch squares.

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