Pumpkin Spice Cupcake with Maple Buttercream Frosting

I just got some new neighbors across the street.  I'm horrible at starting conversations with people, especially people I don't know so...I bring food.  It's a good ice breaker.

Since it's October, I thought pumpkin cupcakes would be a great treat for them. I stumbled across this recipe from javacupcake.com that I've followed for a while.  Her recipe includes a maple cream cheese frosting but I'm not the biggest fan of cream cheese icing.  It's a bit rich for me so I made mine a buttercream frosting instead.

It's lighter and not as sweet but adds just the right amount  to the pumpkin spice flavor of the cupcakes.  These cakes are so moist and delicious.  We My new neighbor will love them!

Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes with Maple Buttercream Frosting

Printable version
easilymadeeasilybroken.blogspot.com


Ingredients
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp kosher salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp ground ginger
½ tsp ground nutmeg
2 large eggs
1 cup canned pumpkin puree, not pie filling
½ cup granulated sugar
½ cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
½ cup vegetable oil
Maple buttercream frosting (see below)

1.  Preheat oven to 350˚.  Line muffin tin with cupcake liners (12).
2.  In a medium bowl, combine the dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg. In a larger bowl or mixer, combine the eggs, pumpkin, granulated sugar,brown sugar, and vegetable oil and whisk together.  Gradually add theflour mixture to the wet ingredients and mix until combine.
3.  Divide the batter into the cupcake liners.  Fillabout 2/3 full.
4.  Bake for 20-25 minutes, until the cupcake springs back tothe touch.  Allow cupcakes to cool completely before frosting.
5.  Using a piping bag and a tip (I use Wilton 1M Star tip),frost the tops of the cupcakes with maple frosting.  Top with a pumpkin shaped candy. 

Maple Buttercream Frosting
Ingredients
3 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
¼ tsp maple flavored extract
½ tsp vanilla extract
2-3 Tbsp milk 

In your mixing bowl, slowly mix together the butter, sugar and maple and vanilla extracts.  Gradually add milk as your mixer is combining ingredients until frosting is at the consistency you want.

Cinnamony, pumpkiny goodness topped with a bit of maple sugary flavor.  Simply delicious!

Hairy Spider Cupcake

My son recently schooled me on spiders.  He made sure to let me know they're not an insect and that they have eight legs.  I mean, I  knew they had eight legs however I might have looked it up to make sure before I made these spider cupcakes.

Even when I was making them, he pointed out a spider cupcake that didn't have eight legs.  Very clearly, with the "duh" tone in his voice, he told me that spiders have to have eight legs.  I didn't want to point out to him that spiders also have two sections to their body and these spiders only have one.  I'm sure he'll point that out to me next year when we make these.  You know, when he's older and wiser...and in first grade.

I’m not really sure why spiders are associated with Halloween except for the creepy factor they have.  I guess the cobwebs of spiders past can make an old, haunted house even creepier.  I will say, though - the only spiders I like are chocolate variety you see here.

This chocolate cupcake is topped with chocolate buttercream frosting and lots and lots of sprinkles.  I like the sprinkles on this one because it makes the spider look hairy.  I’m tempted to call this a tarantula cupcake. 

Tarantula Cupcake

Printable version

easilymadeeasilybroken.blogspot.com

Ingredients

24 cupcakes

Chocolate buttercream frosting

Chocolate sprinkles

48 mini M&M chocolatecandies
Black licorice laces or Twizzlers cut into thin strips – cut into pieces about 1- 1 ½ inches long

Directions

1.  Begin by frosting your cupcake with a generous amount of frosting.  I use a piping bag with no tip to make the icing pretty thick on top.

2.  Dip the frosted cupcake in the sprinkles to cover the entire frosting with sprinkles.

3.  Place 4 pieces of licorice on each side of the cupcake for legs.  You need to put it far enough into the icing to keep them in place.  If your icing isn’t thick enough, you may need to push the legs into the actual cake.

If you can't find licorice strings (like me) you can use licorice and cut the twists in half with kitchen shears.  Then cut the strips into 1 - 1 1/2 inch long pieces.  To the right is a picture of me cutting the licorice twists.



I wish I had purchased some licorice string online, though.  I think it would have looked better.  Next time, I'll get Kenny's black licorice laces like these:

4.  Put your mini M&Ms in the spider for eyes.

Easy, peasy, you have a creepy crawly eight-legged arachnid.