Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

Okay so, before I start telling you how to make these, you should first know that I am by no means any sort of a professional, as a matter of fact, this was my first try at making pumpkin cupcakes. I just follow rules fairly well (edit: after writing the ingredients I realized I don't actually follow rules very well, but these still turned out great... so just follow your heart.) And you can too! And then we can be novice bakers who make delicious pumpkin cupcakes together! YAY!

I pinned this recipe the other day from The Spiced Life, who strongly based the recipe on  Martha Stewart's Cupcakes. That's how you know it's gonna be delicious, Martha doesn't muck about!

CUPCAKE INGREDIENTS:

• 4 cups flour (The Spiced Life recommends 'Cake Flour', I don't know what that is and used regular flour)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 4 tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp cinnamon (She recommends Ceylon Cinnamon, but I ain't that fancy)
• 1 tbsp ground ginger (I skipped this and it was still delicious)
• 1/2 tsp grated nutmeg (She recommends fresh, ain't nobody got time for that)
• 1/2 ground cloves
• 1 cup butter, room temperature. (She actually recommends using unsalted butter and then adding "1 tsp of finely ground sea salt, but I just skipped the salt and used regular butter and they are delish)
• 2 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 cup full fat buttermilk
• 1 1/2 cans pumpkin puree (The recipe actually calls for 1 1/2 cups of canned puree.. I thought it said 1 1/2 cans, so I added about 600 ml which is actually over two cups.... but I promise they turned out perfect!)

FROSTING INGREDIENTS:

• 1 cup butter (again, she recommends unsalted, I used salted)
• 16 oz cream cheese, room temp (16oz = 2 cups)
• 4 cups confectioners sugar (aka icing sugar)
• 1 tsp vanilla

These things are amazing, seriously NO cupcake is stuck to the liners when you remove them, it's magical 

INSTRUCTIONS: 

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line your muffin tins with liners, Spiced Life recommends spraying lined tins with a non-stick spray, I used Paper Chefs Parchment paper liners which are super non-stick so I skipped that step.
2. Whisk together the flour, baking soda and baking powder. Set aside.
3. Beat the butter until creamy with the spices. Add the brown sugar and beat until lightened and fluffy. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. FYI I don't have a stand or hand mixer and did all of the mixing with my own arms.. okay I used Joel's arms. 
4. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping the sides and bottom of the bowl as needed. Add the vanilla and beat that in.
5. Add the flour mixture in 4 additions, the buttermilk in 3 additions, alternating, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Keep the mixer speed at low for this. Or tell your bf to mix slower.
6. Add the pumpkin puree. Beat until just combined.
7. Fill the liners ¾ full. (It is fine if some of the batter needs to wait on the counter because you don’t have enough muffin pans for all of the cupcakes to bake at once.)
8. Bake for 15-18 minutes, rotating front to back and top to bottom halfway through. The cupcakes are ready when they are golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out clean or with only a few crumbs attached.
9. Let the cupcakes cool in the pans for 5 minutes and then turn them out onto a cooling rack to cool completely.
10. FROSTING: beat the softened butter and cream cheese until creamy and completely blended. Add the vanilla and beat in. Then add the powdered sugar, ½ cup at a time, beating until the frosting is creamy, somewhat fluffy.
11. Frost the completely cooled cupcakes. I added "Autumn Mix" candies to the top, which I found in the bulk section at my local Canadian Superstore.

Seriously, these turned out so delicious. Which is surprising to me now that I'm re-reading and realizing I did so much wrong! Perhaps it's an autumn miracle! No complaints here! Try these out my way, or follow the original  recipe with probably better results!

Happy Autumn everyone, and happy baking!

XO_BITS