Mini Pumpkin Layer Cake with Maple Glaze

hello! im sorry for the lack of posts, but this one will definitely make up for it! my amazing sister bought me a box of Stonewall Kitchen's pumpkin spice cake mix last week- may i add it came with maple cream cheese frosting mix! so naturally, i made it as soon as i got home this weekend. for a boxed cake mix it was honestly really good! the cake had a lot of pumpkin flavor, not just spice flavor like most "pumpkin" flavored foods. the texture was light, moist, and very fluffy. on the other hand, the frosting was awful. i tried to fix it up a bit, which you'll see in pictures further into the post, but it was a lost cause. i ended up making a really simple maple glaze to pour on top, which just made everything a bajillion times better. i also chose to make a mini layer cake by cutting out small circles. the layers were a little thicker than i wanted them to be, so if you make this at home i would suggest using a pan larger than 9 by 9. i don't think ive emphasized how amazing this cake was. its mini, its pumpkin, its beautiful, its drenched in a sugary glaze. if thats not enough, i don't know what is.

ingredients:
cake-
1 box of Stonewall Kitchen pumpkin spice layer cake mix
2 whole eggs, lightly beaten
2/3 cup of oil
3/4 cup of milk
glaze-
3 tbsp of butter
1/4 cup of maple syrup (the real stuff!!!!)
3/4 cup of powdered sugar
recipe:
cake-
-mix all those wet ingredients together

-then pour in the cake mix and beat with an electric mixer just until everything is combined

-pour batter into a greased pan with parchment paper, and bake for the directed time-which i believe was about 35 minutes)
-take out the cake and let it cool

-once cool, flip the cake out of the pan (notice the hole in the middle of the cake and the missing edges- both of which i ate as soon as the cake came out of the oven)

-use a cup, or anything with a round edge, to cut circles out of the cake



-put cake scraps into a container-or eat them while you're making the glaze, remembering to dip scraps into the glaze once its done, like i did

glaze-
-melt the butter and maple syrup together in the microwave- or over the stove if ya gotta be fancy
-add the powdered sugar and stir a bunch until all of the lumps of sugar are gone

assemble:
-take one of those adorable little cake rounds and spoon some glaze on top of it (DONT YOU LOVE THIS GIF?!?!?!??!?! BECAUSE I DO)

-top with another layer, and repeat the first step

 -and again

(those are my sister's fingers. she was saving my our mini cake from falling over)

 -and again

-find a fork and eat the whole mini layer cake, remembering how fab i am for giving this recipe to you

here is my adventure with the packaged frosting, in case you were interested-
-so i beat together 1 stick of butter and 4 oz of cream cheese for a while

-then i added in the frosting mix

-then i beat that together and got this nice looking bowl of frosting

 -then i tasted it, gagged, and tried to fix it by adding more cream cheese and some chunks of frosting from a very good carrot cake from a very good bakery

-needless to say, i wasted a stick of butter, a package of cream cheese, and destroyed a perfectly good cake for nothing. toss the packaged frosting immediately. there is no way to save it. i promise.