Pumkin Spiced Cupcakes

With Halloween creeping its way towards us, you would be hard pressed to walk into a shop and not see a pile of pumpkins stacked high. But how few of these pumpkins actually get eaten?! Well I decided that this year not only am I NOT going to buy lots of sweets for the little trick or treaters, and then sit in with all the lights out pretending not to be home...(oh dear no visitors, guess I will have to eat all of these! hehe) but I was also going to find a delicious pumpkin recipe and here is the beauty, yes it may be a little bit inspired by the much loved Starbucks autumnal latte, and its just as delicious too!  

Step 1. Purchase Your Pumpkin - not gonna lie, only added this step because, how cute is this kids stall!

Cupcake Ingredients

280g Plain Flour

1 tsp Cinnamon

1/2 tsp Nutmeg

1/2 tsp Ground Ginger

1/2 tsp Ground Allspice 

1/2 tsp Salt

1 tbs Baking Powder

1/2 tsp Bicarbonate Soda

110g Butter

200g Light Brown Sugar

2 Eggs (room temperature)

180ml Milk

250g Pumpkin, cooked & pureed

 

Cinnamon Cream Cheese Icing

200g Cream Cheese

50g Butter

500g Icing Sugar

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

1 tsp Cinnamon

Method - Cupcakes

1. Preheat your oven to 190 C / Gas 5. Prep your tray with 24 cupcake cups.

2. peel and cube your pumpkin, place in a pan of water and simmer until soft.

3. In a bowl cream together your softened butter, caster sugar and light brown sugar.

4. Add the eggs (very VERY slowly!) to your mixture and mix in, be careful this mixture is on the verge of curdling constantly! (however my first batch curdled and they tasted fine!)

5. Drain your pumpkin and add to a blender with your milk, and blend till smooth.

6. Add your dry ingredients; flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, ground ginger, ground allspice, salt, baking powder, bicarbonate soda, and mix all together.

7.  Pop the mixture into your prepped cupcake cups and pop in the oven for 25 mins, or until a skewer can be placed into the cupcake and comes out clean.

 

Method - Icing*

1. Beat the cream cheese and the butter together until all blended and smooth.

2. Add the vanilla extract, cinnamon, a little icing sugar, and stir until smooth again.

3. Repeat adding a little icing sugar at a time, and stirring until you reach the consistency you desire. *I had to use all my icing sugar AND a good splodge of corn flour to get my icing stiff enough, even then it wasn't perfect, so if you really want that cupcake perfect icing I would suggest using less cream cheese & butter to reach the consistency a lot quicker.

4. Once your cupcakes are cool, spoon your icing into a piping bag and go crazy!

 

Packed full of spice, these pumpkin cupcakes are a perfect way to use up any left over pumpkin you may have - give them ago, they are moist, tasty and...who needs a third reason its cake!!

 

Carla