Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cinnamon Buttercream Frosting

The following story is an illustration of how crazy all the medications I’m on are making me. The other day, while browsing the internet for food options and ideas, I came across a fall soup served in mini pumpkins. I just skimmed over the recipe (I will later regret this) thinking I would make it sometime soon. I went to the grocery store a day or two later and saw they had pumpkin pie pumpkins on sale. “Awesome,” I thought to myself, “I can get a couple of these pumpkins and make that soup this week.” Oh, how wrong I was.

A couple days after buying the pumpkins I pulled up the recipe to make the soup. Well, when I went back to the bookmarked recipe I discovered the soup was served in individual acorn squash “bowls”, not mini pumpkins. I could have sworn the first time I looked at the recipe they were in pumpkins. Also, there wasn't really a recipe, just a description of the soup. How in the world did I think that I had "skimmed" a recipe? I wanted to kick myself for relying on my (not-so-accurate) memory instead of verifying the ingredients before I went to the grocery store. I wish I could say this is the first time something like this has happened to me, but sadly it is not. You would think I’d have learned by now not to rely on my heavily medicated brain. But I guess I’m in denial about how mixed up the meds actually make me.

I then found myself stuck with two pumpkins and no idea what to do with them. So I let them sit around a bit longer to think. After mulling about it for a few days I decided to make some kind of pumpkin dessert with them. I roasted the pumpkins, scooped out the flesh, and made my own pumpkin puree. My two little pumpkins yielded about 1 ½ cups of puree. I decided to make these cupcakes because they looked yummy and were highly rated.

The cupcakes are moist and full of pumpkin flavor, but I was not a fan of the icing; I’m glad I only made half the icing recipe. I found it too sugary and I wish I had left some cupcakes un-iced. Oh well. Mr. Surly loved these, after trying one he uttered a “Holy shit, these are really good,” and went on to pop about 3 more mini cupcakes in his mouth. I bet you can guess who ate most of the batch.

Also, I apologize about the crappy job I did of icing the cupcakes; I’ve never been a good ice-er. The recipe yielded 24 mini cupcakes and 6 regular sized cupcakes. I had some bourbon and decided to add some to my cupcakes and icing for a little something extra.



Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cinnamon Buttercream Frosting
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for the pumpkin cupcakes:
¾ c flour
½ c plus 2 Tbl brown sugar
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp pumpkin pie spice
~ ½ tsp freshly grated nutmeg
~1 ½ c pumpkin puree (fresh or canned)
3 Tbl unsweetened applesauce
3 Tbl flax seed oil (or any oil)
2 whole eggs
1 Tbl bourbon (I use Maker’s Mark)

preheat oven to 350F

In large bowl combine flour, brown sugar, baking powder and soda, salt, and spices. Stir together, then add the oil and eggs. Beat on high for about two minutes. Stir in pumpkin and bourbon until just combined.

Scoop into muffin tins about ¾ full. Bake until golden and toothpick comes out clean. My mini cupcakes only took 10-13 minutes. Remove from oven, cool in cupcake pan 2 mintues, then remove cupcakes to cool completely on wire rack. Once cool, frost with Cinnamon Buttercream Frosting (recipe below)


for the cinnamon buttercream icing:
Note: this is for half batch since I made mini cupcakes. If you like frosting, I’d double this.

2 c powdered sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
¼ c (4 Tbl) butter, softened to room temp
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp bourbon (opt)
2 Tbl heavy cream


Cream together butter and powdered sugar. Add the rest of the ingredients and beat on high 2-3 mintues.
Ice cupcakes. Sprinkle with additional cinnamon, if desired.



source: slightly adapted from Tasty Kitchen