Pumpkin spice cupcakes

October means no more summer which makes me a little sad because I love the warm weather but its the start of the baking season which makes me happy. Even though I firmly believe baking season is year round. All the yummy fall flavors like apple, pumpkin, cranberry, spices etc. inspire many delicious baked goodies I enjoy to make and eat!! So I jumped on the pumpkin cupcake bandwagon first. It seems to be very popular right now
I started with a spice cake base for the cake and added in canned pureed pumpkin, pumpkin pie spice and apple sauce instead of oil. It was dense, moist and smelled amazing

I have been into doing filled cupcakes lately so a friend of a friend gave me her pumpkin fluff recipe which I found out was my friend's recipe after all. Confused? ha ha
Its a mixture of pumpkin puree, vanilla pudding mix, frozen whipped topping and more pumpkin pie spice. I wanted to sit down with the bowl and a spoon, forget the cupcakes. ha. No seriously this stuff is to die for. Probably really good with graham crackers or ginger snaps

I used my Wilton Bismark tip to fill. I overfilled some since some were cracking on top -oops. Nothing a big glob of frosting wont fix!

Topped off with super yummy cream cheese frosting, I do believe that any kind of spice cupcake and cream cheese frosting go very well together

A sprinkling of cinnamon and a mellowcreme pumpkin to finish it off

I forgot I had this super cute pumpkin plate so I took this pic at last minute. I don't even remember where I got it from! But perfect to display my pumpkin spice cupakes

 Pumpkin Spice Cupcake with cinnamon cream cheese frosting recipe

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
•   2 1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 c applesauce
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs, room temperature
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1 cup pumpkin puree (not pie filling)
•  
• Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting
• 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
• 1 stick butter, softened
• 3 cups confectioners' sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Directions

1. Preheat an oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease 24 muffin cups, or line with paper muffin liners. Sift together the flour,pumpkin pie spice, salt, baking powder, and baking soda; set aside.
2. Beat applesauce, the white sugar, and brown sugar with an electric mixer in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Add the room-temperature eggs one at a time, allowing each egg to blend into the sugar mixture before adding the next. Stir in the milk and pumpkin puree after the last egg. Stir in the flour mixture, mixing until just incorporated. Pour the batter into the prepared muffin cups.
3. Bake in the preheated oven until golden and the tops spring back when lightly pressed, about 25 minutes. Cool in the pans for 5 minutes before removing to cool completely on a wire rack.

While the cupcakes are cooling, make the frosting by beating the cream cheese and 1/4 butter with an electric mixer in a bowl until smooth. Beat in the confectioners' sugar a little at a time until incorporated. Add the vanilla extract and 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon; beat until fluffy. Once the cupcakes are cool, frost with the cream cheese icing

Pumpkin Fluff Recipe

Ingredients

1 15 ounce can of pumpkin puree ( not pumpkin pie spice)

1 package of vanilla instant pudding mix

1 container of frozen whipped topping ( cool-whip) thawed

1 Tbsp pumpkin pie spice

Directions

dump all the ingredients into a bowl and mix until everything is incorporated. You can use a spoon, a spatula or even a hand mixer. Yes its that easy!!

Cupcake Liners

What exactly is so exciting about cupcake liners? I am not totally sure except that they are kind of like shoes to a woman's perfect outfit. You have to have cute shoes to match the whole ensemble right? So that is what the liner is to me. Sure it gets torn off and thrown away and most people don't really take much notice. But its all about today's cupcake aesthetic. They say you eat with your eyes first so why not have as pretty of a cupcake as possible. There are liner of all shapes, sizes , colors, patterns. You name it - they make it.
Cupcakes are the rage these days, and I am even jumping on the cupcake bandwagon, so they should stand out to get noticed. And why not? Who doesn't love a cupcake. They even come in sugar free, wheat free, egg free, vegan, vegetarian, gluten free, you name it they have it. If you have any kind of allergy or intolerance well there is always a cupcake friendly enough for you to eat.

So.

Back to the liners. I got introduced to the brown cupcake liner by my friend Steph and she directed me to where she got them on Ebay. I ordered a few packs and made them with an order of chocolate peanut butter cupcakes. I am not blogging these cupcakes since I have twice already and its the same recipe. But I LOVED the look of the brown liner. It just makes the cupcakes look, well, classy. Instead of the boring white or another color that the dark cake washes out, these held up true to color and are grease free so they didn't have any splotches on them. I am all for the grease free liner. So you may not notice the liner the next time you have a cupcake, but to my perfect outfit or cupcake, these are my perfect shoes aka liner and I will take a look before I tear it off to eat the yummy cupcake goodness.

Island Inspiration Cupcakes

Coconut Passionfruit Cupcakes

My recent travels to Hawaii inspired me to make some tropical flavored cupcakes when I got home. I absolutely love all the wonderful fresh fruits that one can get in Hawaii - they just taste that much better there - so I decided on making cupcakes with Lilikoi also known as passion fruit. I paired it with one of my other favorite flavors, coconut.

I first made a coconut cupcake which was made with coconut flour, coconut milk and extract. Amongst other ingredients. The cake was light, moist and not overpowered by coconut flavor

Since I wanted both the coconut and lilikoi flavors to shine in this cupcake I made a lilikoi curd to fill the cupcake with. I brought back several cans and bottles of lilikoi juice, butter, jelly etc. So I made the curd with the juice. I used my apple corer to take a chunk out of each cupcake to fill them

I love using the apple corer. Makes an even hole each time for even filling

The curd was sweet and tart. Just like a ripe passionfruit. It has such a distinct flavor, by far one of my favorites especially for cakes and cupcakes

I frosted them with my version of passionfruit italiam meringue buttercream. It came out light, tart sweet and buttery. I could have eaten it with a spoon. I added a few sweetened coconut shavings as a garnish. These were super yummy and I will make again. I might have to go back to Hawaii for ingredients though, oh darn!!