Sponge Cake Cupcakes Gone Wrong or Right?

Just add water is what the cake mix said. Great that's easy, I can't mess that up. Well.....
I got the mix and some wonderfully scrumptious looking berries.( I am trying so hard to hold on to any last bit of summer).


At home, I added the water and BOOM the simple sponge cake mix grew like magic in my mixing bowl. Next I sprayed the cupcake pan, and filled them about 2/3 full. Put them in the oven, and watched them rise. They were beautiful and puffy with a perfect rounded cupcake top.
I washed the fruit and mixed it with Cool whip. Yummm! I glanced over at my perfect little cupcakes expecting the tops to be nice and crystally brown. Here is where it gets tricky. They were missing. Where did they go? Oh there they are, way down at the bottom of the cupcake pan. Now they are hockey pucks. My beautiful cupcakes turned into pellets. Luckily those pellets, almost cookie like, were sooo good. Super crispy and sweet on the outside and soft on the insides. I decided to sandwich the fruit in the middle. Even my picky one had 2 helpings!

A success!
c.f.