Spiced Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Icing

I absolutely adored the cupcakes we had for our Halloween party recently, they’re squidgy and moreish thanks to the wonderful winter spices and the cinnamon icing might just be the best thing ever! Today I’m going to share the recipe for Spiced Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Icing.

Ingredients

3oz/ 85g Butter or Margarine

8oz/ 225g White Sugar

8oz/ 225g Brown Sugar

2 Eggs

180ml Milk

8oz/ 225g Pumpkin Puree (you can use canned or freshly made)

10oz Self Raising Flour

1 heaped Tsp Ground Cinnamon

1/2 Tsp Ground Ginger

1/2 Tsp Nutmeg

1/2 Tsp Ground Cloves

1/2 Tsp Allspice

Cinnamon Cream Cheese Icing

1 standard tub of Cream Cheese (usually about 225g)

2oz/ 50g Butter

Icing Sugar

1 Tsp Vanilla Extract

1 heaped Tsp Ground Cinnamon

Method

First cream together the white sugar, brown sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Then add in the eggs one at a time mixing thoroughly.

Now stir in the milk and pumpkin puree until combined.

Sift the flour, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, ground cloves and allspice into the mixture. Fold the flour into the mixture using a large spoon until just combined.

Now fill 23-24 cupcake cases or approx. 15 muffin cases with the batter.

Bake in a preheated oven 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4 for about 20 minutes.

Remove from the oven and let cool on a wire rack.

Icing

The trick to cream cheese icing is not to over mix, if you do you’ll end up with a delicious runny icing but it’s no good for piping on a cake. Either use an electric mixer on low speed or mix by hand.

Mix together the butter and cream cheese until just combined. Next add in the vanilla extract and cinnamon.

I haven’t put a quantity for the icing sugar because I think it’s better to test your icing by taste and texture. Add icing sugar and mix gently until you like the sweetness and your icing can hold together sufficiently to be iced onto your cooled cupcakes.