Spice Cake with Cinnamon Buttercream Frosting

I'm not a baker, but after my successful Speckled Easter Egg Cake (see April 2018), I decided to give a showy cake another try.  This time, for Thanksgiving.  It's a combo from a few different ideas I saw online.

Spice Cake with Cinnamon Buttercream Frosting

1 Duncan Hines Spice Cake Mix, mixed according to directions

Frosting:
1 lb. powdered sugar
1 c. butter, softened
2-3 t. vanilla
2 T. milk (or more to thin frosting to desired consistency
1 t. cinnamon

Stem:
2-3 chocolate frosted chocolate cupcakes.  I used store bought--easy!

Prepare the cake mix.  Pour the batter into a greased and floured bundt pan and bake according to the instructions on the box.

When the cake is done, let it sit in the pan for 15 minutes before flipping it out of the pan to let it cool completely.

To prepare the frosting, put the powdered sugar and softened butter in a bowl and blend.  Add the vanilla and 1 T. of the milk and combine.  Add the next 1 T. of milk (or more) if it is too thick.  (I ended up using about 2 1/2 T. milk total.)  Finally, add the cinnamon and mix.

Before smoothing the grooves

Frost the top and sides of the bundt cake.  With a flat knife or back of a spoon, make grooves all around it. 

While the buttercream is firming up a bit work on the stem.  Scrape off the frosting off of 1-2 cupcakes and pack them on top of each other to fill in the hole in the center of the cake.  Put a frosted cupcake on top.  Take the scraped off frosting and cover the sides of the top cupcake.  Use a fork to run grooves up the cupcake so it looks like a stem.

Now that the frosting is set a bit.  with your finger, tamp down to smooth the rough edges of the groves to make it look more smooth and natural.

After smoothing the grooves

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c = cup
T = Tablespoon
t = teaspoon
lb = pound