I have been in a baking mood lately…ok, I think I am always in that mood:) Is that bad??? Anyways, I decided to make pumpkin cupcakes, a recipe from Fresh from Cate’s Kitchen, a blog I absolutely adore.
The cupcake batter was easy to make. I like that the recipe called for half oil and half applesauce. It kept the cupcakes super moist, especially with all of that pumpkin! I love the fall spices too, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ground cloves! I knew these were going to be good when they were baking. My kitchen never smelt so good!
After the pumpkin cupcakes cooled I frosted them with maple cream cheese frosting. The perfect way to top them off! The hint of maple was a great compliment to the pumpkin.
It was one of my co-worker’s birthdays this week so I brought them in to celebrate. We aren’t supposed to bring in “unhealthy foods” at my workplace…we have a healthy food policy, but I snuck these in anyways. I couldn’t eat them all by myself! I am glad I shared because everyone loved them! They were in sugar heaven!
Pumpkin Cupcakes
Adapted from Fresh from Cate’s Kitchen
2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
½ tsp ground cinnamon (I put in a couple extra dashes)
½ tsp ground nutmeg
¼ tsp ground cloves
⅓ cup granulated sugar
⅓ cup brown sugar
¼ cup canola oil
¼ cup applesauce
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
¾ cup buttermilk
¾ cup canned pumpkin
Preheat oven to 350 and line a cupcake pan with paper liners.
In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, spices, and sugars.
In a medium bowl, whisk together remaining ingredients.
Gently stir the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients, and pour into the prepared pan.
Bake for about 18-20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Cool completely on a wire rack
Frosting
4 tbsp butter, softened
8 oz cream cheese, softened
¼ cup maple syrup
3 cups powdered sugar
With the paddle attachment, beat together the butter and cream cheese.
Add maple syrup and beat on medium until combined.
Mix in the powdered sugar, one cup at a time, then mix on medium-high until smooth.
Frost each cupcake liberally. You will have leftover frosting…or I did. So save it for another dessert or slather it on graham crackers! YUM!
These look great! Must try the combo of maple syrup and cream cream frosting. Healthy food policy? My co-workers would starve! 🙂 But that is a good idea…and I think these cupcakes w applesauce fit that requirement!
They look delicious – If you didn’t frost them would they be considered muffins and healthy?
wow, those look so delicious!! they look good even without the frosting…and maple frosting?? sounds even better!
Yay! I’m glad you like them 🙂
That sounds wonderful and the health profile before the frosting is great. The frosting sounds divine!
I LOOVE Cate’s blog too. And your cupcakes came out fabulously! YUM YUM!!!
I love cream cheese frosting. These look so good – Im going to have to try
These came out really well. There’s something about fall and pumpkin that’s a natural pairing.
These look perfect. I love anything pumpkin, so I know I am going to have to make these. Lovely!
That first picture is all I needed to be in love. It looks way too wonderful and yummy.
Maria I too seem to be a baking mood lately but then I prefer baking in fall and winter. Your pumpkin cupcakes look so yummy and did you say cream cheese frosting?? I love cream cheese frosting!!
Maria
x
Those look perfect and I love the flavor combination- yum!
Oh, what gorgeous cupcakes! I’m drooling…
Cheers,
Rosa
These look incredible and I love the combo of the maple cream cheese frosting with the cupcakes. I am going to have to put this on my list!!!!
I love the look of these. And the fact that they’re covered with maple cream cheese frosting… well, fabulous!
I wish I would have saw this recipe before I made my bread. Those cupcakes look so yummy.
They really do look great! I love the half oil half applesauce thing too, it makes them moist and helps me feel a little bit more healthy, even if it really isn’t that much healthier.
The maple cream cheese frosting sounds so yummy!
ha – I don’t think we’d ever be able to enforce a “healthy food” policy at my work – thank goodness, because that’s where I get rid of all of my treats so that my husband and I don’t eat all of them! These cupcakes look delicious – I love pumpkin cupcakes!
Ooh, love that maple frosting!
Those pumpkin cupcakes look divine Maria!! No it’s not bad to spread a little sweetness around in my eyes 🙂
Rosie x
Great fall flavours. Cream cheese frosting is my favourite. It goes with everything!
I can’t believe they tell you what foods you can bring in at work!
María these cupcakes are really cute and wonderful!! like it.xGloria
Maria, thanks for visiting! These look wonderful…looking forward to coming back to see what’s next!
These look amazing! I can’t get enough of pumpkin this time of year, and these are getting bumped to the top of my pumpkin list. I think you can totally count these as a health food (but I might have a rather skewed perspective these days thanks to TWD). 🙂
Yum to the pumpkin cupcakes, yum to the party spread!, yum to those toffee cinnamon oatmeal cookies. All your “goods” look so divine!
You gotta try those hard boiled egg cookies. SOOOO good! (Throw in a few of those toffee chips! 😉 Today I tried them with crasins instead of raisins. Yum! Next I want to try the oatmeal cookie with choc chips and no cinnamon.
Wow, $.70 for Hersheys! Where? I guess it doesn’t matter, I used to live in Utah, but I’m in far away Kansas now. My husband was just “home” (in Provo) on business last weekend and went to the BYU game. He got quite the snow storm driving to the airport Sunday morn! Good ol’ Utah!
Thanks for visiting my blog.
What kind of hell hole do you work in that doesn’t allow cupcakes? Just kidding! Glad you got to sneak these in.
Thanks for the comments everyone!
You are all curious about my work and the healthy food policy…I work for Healthy Utah, the worksite wellness program for Utah. My job is to promote health, etc. to state employees and local governments. It is a fun job! So I guess we are supposed to practice what we preach by not bringing in unhealthy foods. But everything in moderation, right? So sometimes we sneak it in! I have to share my goodies. I can’t eat them all!
Your pumpkin cupcakes look absolutely fantastic 🙂
I’m so glad you made these. Now I can make them “to test” for the Christmas goodies I’m baking!
These really do look great – I love that the icing is oozing off the tops! Great job!
-DTW
http://www.everydaycookin.blogspot.com
mmmm, those look amazing! i need to make somee.
I LOVE pumpkin and these look wonderful 🙂
Where do you work that has a healthy food policy? I think that is fabulous! I also think these cupcakes look amazing and they have pumpkin in them so that means they’re healthy 😉 hahah. I just noticed your husbands name is Josh! Its a good name!!
Pumpkin muffins with maple cream cheese muffins…mmm…
Wonderful! I love anything w/ cream cheese frosting and with the maple in it…AHHHHHHH!
These look so tempting! I’m sure your co-workers were LOVING you! I used a maple cream cheese frosting for some cookies recently and had to throw the left over frosting out. I could not keep my fingers out of it!
They look as delicious as they are adorable!! Thanks for your well wishes! We had a great time. I’ve got so much to catch up on!
Can I lick all the icing off? It looks luscious.
I’d make like my five year old, and lick off all the frosting first. Yum!
Thanks for stopping by my blog! These look delicious – all my favorite flavors of fall!
of course it’s not wrong to always be in the mood to bake, especially when you’re topping things off with maple-cream cheese frosting! yum.
These looks so yummy! I love the maple in the icing!
The flavors look really good. Could have just left them unfrosted and kept the icing for yourself. 😛 They look yummy!
Those look absolutely delicious. I think I can smell the pumpkin just looking at the screen!
Yum! I just want to lick the frosting off of the screen!
Wow, those look super! I’m fairly new to baking, but I was wondering about how many this recipe will make? And would I have to make any changes if I only made 1/2 recipe instead?
Just wondering if anyone out there has any comments AFTER actually having made and tasted these cupcakes?
Awesome! I was looking for a sugar-free cupcake recipe for my daughter’s 1 year birthday in October, and thought pumpkin would be cool, and found this! Cannot WAIT to try it!!!
My daughters birthday is in November and she loves pumpkin, but also wants the cupcakes to be rainbow on the inside, is it possible to do that to these?
I’ve never tried it. The orange pumpkin color might make the colors look off.