I've always wanted to bake some cupcakes around the Autumn/Halloween season that included pumpkin, I mean I'm a huge pumpkin lover when it comes to Halloween anyway but more in the decoration, homeware and carving sense not the eating sense, but I was determined this year to bake with pumpkin! Obviously to bake with pumpkin I needed to get some Pumpkin Puree or Pumpkin Spice, both of these are quite tricky to get in the UK but I managed to grab a tin of the puree online, so I based my bake around the puree and came up with a pretty epic Pumpkin Spiced Cupcake recipe, even if I do say so myself he he!
What You Will Need For 12 Cupcakes
50g butter, softened
1 large egg
90ml milk
125g pureed pumpkin
100g caster sugar
3 tablespoons brown soft sugar
140g plain flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
What You Will Need For The Cinnamon Buttercream
150g unsalted butter
300g icing sugar
1-2 tablespoons milk
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Sprinkles to decorate (optional)
How To - The Cupcakes
1. Firstly you want to preheat your oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4 and line a 12-hole muffin tin with paper cases.
2. Cream the butter and the caster sugar together in a bowl until pale, then pop in the egg, milk and pumpkin puree and mix again.
3. Then your going to want to add in your brown sugar and mix again, then pop in the rest of your dry ingredients including the flour, spices, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda and mix until it becomes a smooth batter.
4. Divide your batter between the 12 paper cases and bake in the oven for 18-20 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into one of the cakes comes out clean, then set aside to cool.
How To - Cinnamon Buttercream
1. To make the buttercream just beat the butter with an electric whizzer for a couple of minutes until it starts to go pale and fluffy then gradually add in the icing sugar and beat again for a few minutes. If you find your icing is slightly stiff just mix in a small amount of milk to loosen it up a bit.
2. Once the buttercream is done your going to want to add in your half a teaspoon of ground cinnamon and mix that through the plain buttercream, to be honest you can add as much cinnamon as you like but I would go quarter teaspoon a time if your going to add it to your taste preference, I like my buttercream to have a light cinnamon taste so half a teaspoon was fine for me. You can also do this 'to taste' method with the spices in your cupcakes depending how much spice you like but I like mine quite delicate!
3. To decorate the cupcakes I just whacked my buttercream into a disposable piping bag and just snipped off the end to create a rounded swirl design, I didn't even bother with a pipping nozzle this time around.
4. I finished the cupcakes off with some orange sprinkles and some candy corn pieces on the top of each one and voila!!!
I'm so pleased with how these cupcakes turned out, they had a light 'autumnal spiced' taste and the pumpkin made them so moist and sweet, and the buttercream was to die for. I would definitely bake with pumpkin again, I do have quite a lot of the puree left in the can I bought so I might try pumpkin pie next he he. If your struggling to find pumpkin puree I know certain Tesco stores have cans of it and certain Waitrose and Ocado delivery's have it too, their are also recipes online to make your own too!
Do you like cooking with pumpkin beaut's? I'd love to know!
