Pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese and ginger icing

While I was a bit rushed, I have to say I’m really happy with how these cupcakes turned out. I thought this would be a perfect recipe to test out for the potluck – it’s fall, it’s cooling down outside, and the leaves are slowly changing colour.

The base recipe I used for these cupcakes can be found here, but I adapted it as seen below:

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/3 cups sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup cooked pumpkin (pure can pumpkin could be used instead)
3/4 cup milk

Sift together all the dry ingredients.
Cream butter and sugar. Add egg, mix. Add pumpkin, mix.
Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture in three stages, alternating with the milk.
Bake at 350F for ~20-25 minutes.

The cupcakes turned out to be really moist and flavourful.

I decided on cream cheese and ginger icing for the cupcakes. Here’s how it’s done:

5 oz cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1 1/2 cups icing sugar
2 teaspoons finely grated peeled fresh ginger

Cream together the cream cheese and butter. Mix in the ginger. Add the icing sugar 1/2 cup at a time. Tweak to perfection.

Remember that you can experiment with your icing. If the above doesn’t seem suited to your tastes or desired consistency, add more of the appropriate ingredient. Because this is a relatively soft icing, it’s hard to pipe. I would recommend spreading it onto the cupcake with a spatula. Remember to store these in the fridge!

I hope you try out this great autumn treat!