Now that my brother and sister-in-law and niece and sister-in-law’s sister live relatively near, I periodically drive down for an overnight. The three grown girls do a fun outing in the afternoon (last time we went to a tea shop for afternoon tea! with tiered platters and everything!) while my brother and niece drudge around and go to a playground or something (NO nice china at the playground, NOR wee crustless sandwiches). Then after niece’s bedtime the four grown-ups stay up and eat pizza and cupcakes and drink wine and feel sorry for my sister-in-law who is pregnant and not drinking wine. Then in the morning we finish off the cupcakes with breakfast.

The first time I brought cupcakes, it was impulsive: I was making two one-layer cakes for a school bake sale, and I thought, “Hey, I could make two different flavors of cake AND make mini-cupcakes for the overnight with the extra.” So I did.

But since then, a bake sale hasn’t coincided with an overnight. And when I tried freezing some mini-cupcakes long-term, I found they didn’t do so well. So this is my solution: I divide each cake mix into three. Then I make 1/3rd mix each of two different kinds.

(This picture shows a pile of four cake mix baggies
plus one bag of thawing leftover frosting,
so it is not an ideal illustration.)

I divide the mix into thirds for two reasons: (1) the cake mixes I use call for 3 eggs, and it is tricky to divide into a number of parts different than the number of eggs; (2) one-third cake mix makes almost exactly one pan of 24 mini-cupcakes.

One-third cake mix would also make about 8 regular cupcakes. So if you sometimes want to make cupcakes at your house, but you don’t want a whole cake mix of them, this would be perfect.

Now, I realize this SEEMS like a hassle, and it IS a little teeny BIT of a hassle—but it only has to be done every THREE overnights and, once done, it results in much LESS hassle. And, I divided two cake mixes AND baked a tray of mini-cupcakes from each one in only part of one evening (I don’t think I even started until 8:30 or so), with long breaks while the batches were baking.

Speaking of hassle, don’t miss this step: write the ingredients/instructions on the baggies BEFORE BEFORE BEFORE putting cake mix into them. Before! It is so much easier to write on baggies when they’re flat than when they’re plump with mix. I didn’t remember that this time with the first mix, so my handwriting is a little woopy.

When figuring out 1/3rd of a mix, the most important measurement to know is that a cup is 16 tablespoons. And–stay with me, now–this means a quarter-cup is 4 tablespoons, and a third of a cup is 5 and 1/3 tablespoons. Do not get overwhelmed; do not worry that you don’t have a 2/3 tablespoon measurement. Everything will be fine.

A little bit one way or another isn’t likely to make a huge difference. If I come out with something like 1 and 2/3rds tablespoons, I do a tablespoon and then almost a second tablespoon—I don’t try to get it exact (though I do write it as exact as possible on the baggie, so I know what I’m aiming for with the estimate). And you COULD do it exact: a tablespoon is three teaspoons, so you could do one tablespoon plus two teaspoons. And here’s an easy way to do 7 tablespoons: measure half a cup, and then scoop out one tablespoon.

I did the math on two mixes last night, so I will put those measurements here—and if I think of it, I’ll do different mixes each time and add THOSE measurements here later.

Pillsbury Moist Supreme Classic Yellow (for 1/3rd box of mix)
1/3 cup water
1 egg
approx. 1 and 2/3 tablespoons vegetable oil (or 1 T. plus 2 t.)
350 degrees F for 11-12 minutes minis, 19-23 min reg cupcakes

Betty Crocker Super Moist Chocolate Fudge (for 1/3rd box of mix)
approx. 7 tablespoons water (1/2 c. minus 1 T.)
1 egg
approx. 2 and 2/3 tablespoons vegetable oil (or 2 T. plus 2 t.)
350 degrees F for 11-13 minutes minis, 20-25 min reg cupcakes

So, I write all that on the baggies. Then I get out my little up-to-two-pounds scale, and I divide the cake mix evenly into two baggies, using the original bag the cake mix comes in as the third baggie. It ends up being about 6 or 7 or 8 ounces of cake mix per baggie, but I just kept shaking out little bits of mix until the two baggies each weighed the same as the bag I still had in my hand. This SOUNDS like a huge headache, but it takes about one minute. (If you don’t have a small-weights scale, you could measure a quarter-cup or half-cup or tablespoon at a time evenly into three bowls until you run out of mix.)

Then I make the first batch of cupcakes from the original bag, and I put the two written-on baggies in the pantry for next time. Next time I plan to buy a different mix (maybe an orange? a spice? a lemon?) and divide THAT, and then use the new mix plus one of the previously-sampled ones.

If you make two different kinds of frosting, and frost half of each cupcake flavor in each, you have FOUR different kinds of cupcakes: for example, 1/4th of the cupcakes are yellow cake with vanilla frosting, 1/4th are yellow cake with chocolate frosting, 1/4th are chocolate cake with vanilla frosting, and 1/4th are chocolate cake with chocolate frosting.