Sugar, Spice and Everything Nice

And no, despite the sudden surge of baby bumps among my lady friends, I am not talking about babies. I'm talking about cupcakes!

I needed to bring something sweet and savory to our quarterly whisky dinner club (yes, you heard me... I like to keep a few surprises up my sleeve) so when I came across these absolutely lovely cakes on joylicious (swoon) I knew I'd met my match. The fact that the recipe comes from Martha only further validated my impulse to bake.

Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting


Ingredients
Cupcakes
( makes 18, or 12 and one mini-cake, which is what I did)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon coarse salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1 cup packed light-brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 can (15 ounces) pumpkin puree (I didn't use the whole can... more like 1/2 - 2/3 to avoid an overpowering pumpkin taste)


Frosting 
(this quantity is pretty large... I halved it for one dozen cupcakes and had a little leftover for a light layer over my mini-cake which I made out of my leftover batter - this made a great treat to share at the office the next day)
16 oz cream cheese, softened
4 sticks butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 cup sifted confectioners’ sugar
1 teaspoon of cinnamon - that was my little addition - it gave the icing a really nice scent and a pretty speckled look

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 (if your oven is under your stove, now is the time to place your butter and cream cheese on stove top to get rid of the fridge chill... keep both packaged for now, obvi)
Line cupcake pan with liners
In medium bowl, mix dry cupcake ingredients (flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger, ginger, nutmeg, allspice)
In large bowl, mix sugar, brown sugar, butter, eggs
Mix wet and dry together in large bowl and stir until smooth
Add pumpkin puree (again: I didn't use the whole can... I wanted my cake to taste more spice-like and less pumpkin pie-like)
Fill cupcake liners 1/2 way with batter (I use the ladle and spoon method to get a more precise pour into each cup - this will help you develop a more uniform-looking batch in the end)
Bake for 24ish minutes or until the cakes bounce back when touched (as always, I do a mid-bake rotation to account for any unevenly heated spots in my oven)

Meanwhile... let's get the frosting going. You'll want to use your stand or hand mixer to get a really nice texture.

In a large bowl, mix butter and cream cheese
Add in powdered sugar - s-l-o-w-l-y and mix... if you're not careful, your kitchen will look like the North Pole in no time
Add vanilla and mix until smooth
Add cinnamon and mix until smooth
Let chill in fridge while the cakes bake

When your cakes are done, remove them from the oven and place the cupcakes on a wire rack to cool (I did this after 5-10ish minutes when they were cool enough to handle comfortably)

Only when cupcakes are completely cool should you consider topping them with icing - if you don't wait, you'll get a melty gooey result that just looks bad. Don't do it.
So once cool, remove the frosting from the fridge and scoop it into a large ziploc bag - this will be your icing tool! If you have a real icing tool, congratulations, but for those of us who don't, this trick works great (a guy in my apartment asked if I picked these up a local boutique shop - obvi the highlight of my day)
Cut a tiny slit in the corner of the bag and now you can "pipe" the frosting neatly onto the cakes
I dusted mine with cinnamon, but other cute ideas are to top with brown sugar, walnuts, etc.

 

As always, I knew this recipe was a success because I had exactly zero leftovers. Nada. Just lots of empty plates and platters and that is the way I like it.

Hope you enjoy this yummy fall treat!