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Pumpkin Cupcake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

The recipe is closely adapted from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes.
Course cupcakes
Cuisine dessert
Keyword cream cheese, pumpkin
Servings 32
Author TheSpicedLife

Ingredients

For the cupcakes:

  • 4 cups cake flour fluffed, spooned and leveled
  • 1 t baking soda
  • 4 t baking powder
  • 1 t fine sea salt
  • 2 t Ceylon cinnamon
  • 1 T ground ginger
  • 1/2 t freshly grated nutmeg
  • 1/2 t ground cloves
  • 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
  • 2 1/2 cups packed light brown sugar
  • 4 large eggs
  • 1 t vanilla
  • 1 cup buttermilk I used full fat
  • 1 1/2 cups canned pumpkin puree

For the frosting:

  • 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
  • 16 oz cream cheese room temperature
  • 1 lb (4 cups) confectioners' sugar, sifted
  • 1 t vanilla
  • pinch of fine sea salt

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Have ready enough muffin tins for 32 muffins--line them with paper liners. Lightly spray the pans with the paper liners in--this will make it easy to remove the liners from the cupcakes. If you have leftover empty muffin wells, fill them with about 1/4 cup of water each (I used 3 pans, baked in 2 batches, and the third pan did indeed have empty wells).
  2. Whisk together the flour, salt, 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.
  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.
  6. Add the pumpkin puree. Beat until just combined--I usually finish the job by mixing with a spatula and making sure to scrape the bottom and sides.
  7. Divide the batter between the 32 lined cups; fill the liners 3/4 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 7-10 minutes and then turn them out onto a cooling rack to cool completely.
  10. Preparing the frosting: beat the softened butter and cream cheese until creamy and completely blended. Add the vanilla and salt and beat in. Then add the powdered sugar, 1/2 cup at a time, beating until the frosting is creamy, somewhat fluffy (this frosting calls for more cream cheese than the original, somewhat fluffier recipe, but is tangier as a result).
  11. Frost the completely cooled cupcakes. If desired, place a decorating tip in a frosting bag or ziplock bag and fill the bag with frosting. Decorate in swirls. Pretend to your children you know what you are doing.