Quarantinechef: pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese frosting

You deserve a cupcake. You also deserve to get something good out of the tyranny of pumpkin spice season. Enter the pumpkin cupcake with cream cheese frosting.

This recipe is from Gimme Some Oven (recipe) - I’ve found lots of winners on her blog. My main modification was using Cup4Cup gluten free flour in place of the all-purpose flour - the gluten free flour worked like a charm and these cupcakes came out perfectly the first try. That leads me to believe they would be even easier / more perfect with regular flour and regular altitude (shakes fist at Denver).

Also: many of you know my love affair with funfetti cupcakes and canned rainbow chip frosting. That’s still my first love, but homemade cupcakes and homemade cream cheese frosting are, not gonna lie, probably better.

INGREDIENTS:

For the cupcakes (makes 12):

1 c all-purpose flour (I used Cup4Cup gluten free)
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp pumpkin pie spice (Gimme Some Oven has their own pumpkin pie spice recipe, which combines 2tbsp ground cinnamon, 1 tbsp ground ginger, 2 tsp ground nutmeg, 1 tsp ground allspice, and 1 tsp ground cloves - you can use this spice mix for future pumpkin spice endeavors, since it makes more than you need here)
1 tsp ground cinnamon (additional to the pumpkin spice)
3/4 tsp fine sea salt
1 c pumpkin puree
1/2 canola or veg oil
1/3 c white sugar
1/3 c packed light brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 large eggs

For the cream cheese frosting (makes more than you need - you might be able to cut this in half)

8 oz cream cheese, room temp
1/4 c butter, room temp
3 c powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
pinch of fine sea salt

INSTRUCTIONS:

Step 0: preheat oven to 350 and line a 12-cup muffin tin with liners (or grease the cups)

Step 1: in a medium mixing bowl, combine the first six ingredients: flour, baking powder, baking soda, pumpkin pie spice, cinnamon, and salt. Whisk until fully combined

Step 2: in a large mixing bowl, combine the remaining ingredients: pumpkin puree, canola oil, white sugar, brown sugar, vanilla, and eggs. Stir until fully combined.

Step 3: add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Stir to combine, but don’t overmix: you don’t want to see dry ingredients, but you should do this step by hand rather than using a mixer.

Step 4: scoop into muffin tin (I used a measuring scoop, but you can freeform this). This makes 12 cupcakes.

Step 5: bake 15-20 minutes; for my oven, it took 17min to fully cook to the point that a toothpick was clean after testing.

Step 6: let cupcakes fully cool

and meanwhile….make the frosting:

For the frosting, use a stand mixer or a hand mixer if you have one!

Step 1: put cream cheese, butter, powdered sugar, vanilla, and a bit of salt into a mixing bowl. Mix (preferably with a mixer - start slow at first so you don’t cause a powdered sugar cloud to envelope your face) until fully whipped.

and then assemble!

The assembly is easy. Frost the cupcakes (either with a frosting spatula - my method; or with a pastry bag to pipe the frosting onto the cupcakes). Optionally, dust with more pumpkin spice mix.