Pumpkin Cupcakes

These pumpkin cupcakes are so festive for October and November.  Just looking at them makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside… with a touch of whimsy.  I got this idea out of one of my favorite cupcake books .

These cupcakes are much more about their cute appearance than the actual cake part. You can use any cupcake recipe you like and make any flavor you want.  With everything I’ve got going on in life I usually look for a semi-homemade approach to my cooking and that’s what I did with these.

I used store bought yellow cake mix, followed the directions on the box and added:

3/4 can of pumpkin

2 tsp of pumpkin pie spice

Just look at this beautiful, light, yummy, pumpkin, cupcake batter.

I love all the little speckles of pumpkin pie spice.  I just want to dip my finger into this picture and lick it. Sorry.  Ok… here we go

Another great tip for making pretty cupcakes is to put the batter into a Ziploc bag and dispense it like frosting.

This helps with equal portion control in each cup and it helps to keep from getting batter drips on your paper cups.

I used three different sizes for my cupcakes and just kept a close eye on them in the oven for cooking time differences.

Viola!

What a cute little cupcake family.  Reminds me of a story of three bears and a little girl named Goldilo….

Oh… we’re not done are we? Ahem….

…Onto the frosting.  For making the pumpkin shape I would recommend using a good thick somewhat stiff frosting.  Buttercreme would work, but with pumpkin cake I think it begs a crème cheese frosting.  If you don’t follow the directions here, make sure to double whatever recipe you use.  You’re going to need a good amount of frosting to make your pumpkin domes.

Whip sixteen ounces of crème cheese with two sticks of soft unsalted butter until light and fluffy… about three minutes.

Slowly add:

8 ounces of powdered sugar

1 tsp of vanilla

1 tbsp of milk.

Even if your frosting seems really thick, remember you’re going to be adding some liquid with your food coloring so hold off on adding any more milk until later if you need to.  You don’t want your frosting runny or soupy because then it won’t hold it’s pumpkin shape.

Now it’s time to add the orange food coloring… look at those beautiful swirls.

Just keep adding drops until you get a nice strong orange color.

Lovely, lovely orange!

So now it’s time to frost the cupcakes.

The best approach I’ve found is to use a butter knife and put a big dollop of frosting on top.  Carefully smooth the frosting down towards the cupcake paper being careful to maintain a dome shape.  Don’t worry about making it perfectly smoothe… the sugar crystals will cover up your strokes.

Just focus on making it even and round.

Once you’ve frosted a batch of cupcakes it’s best to put them in the fridge and let them set up for at least fifteen minutes before continuing the decorating.

You can use this time to prepare your other decorating ingredients.

Your going to need a small batch of frosting that is a darker orange than what you used on your cupcakes already.  To achieve this just add a bit of red food coloring to what you’ve already made.

Put the new darker frosting into a Ziploc bag and set it aside.  This is what you’ll use to make the seams.

These rainbow Twizzlers are what you’ll use to make your stems.

Take out a few green ones.

Chop them into some different sized stems and set them aside in a bowl.

Dump your orange sugar crystals into a bowl.  I used a mix of two shades.

Looks like edible fairy dust.  Makes my heart happy.

So now you’re ready to start the final stage of your decorating.

First you’re going to roll your cupcakes gently in the sugar so that the frosting is coated with the sugar crystals.

Next, you’re going to use a sharp knife to cut seems into your cupcakes.  If you’re having a hard time cutting clean seams easily, set your cupcakes back in the fridge for another fifteen minutes, and then try again.

Cut a tiny hole in the corner of your piping/Ziploc bag of darker frosting and pipe it into the seams going from the top of the cupcake down to the paper cup.  Make the hole you cut in the bag REALLY small.  You can always make it a bit bigger if you need to, but once you cut it too big it’s no fun to have to start over and transfer all that frosting into a new bag…. I know… I did it.

Once you’ve piped on all the seems, pick out a stem and gently push it down into the frosting on the top of the cake in the center of where all your seams meet.

And there you go…pumpkin cupcakes!  They make a great treat for a kid’s party.  In fact I think these would be adorable any time of year at a little girl’s Cinderella birthday party.

In October and November these cupcakes serve as a beautiful centerpiece at any family dinner… especially on Thanksgiving.  I bet your guests won’t even realize they’re edible until you point it out.  They’re just so pretty.

If you make some, please leave a post about how it went and what creative things you did with them.

Happy, happy Autumn to you all!

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