Pumpkin Cupcakes with Maple Vanilla Buttercream

Is there a more fabricated excuse to consume copious quantities of candy and sweets positively bejeweled with bats and pumpkins and to adorn everything you ingest with pumpkin spice deliciousness, and make these pumpkin cupcakes with maple vanilla buttercream?

No. Not at all, no.

To be honest, I’ve never been much of a Halloween fan. Instead of welcoming trick-or-treaters, I prefer to pick out my favorite candy from the communal bowl and watch a Halloween-themed movie (this year, I’m in the mood for the original Ghostbusters).

This year, though, I think we’ll upgrade our movie-watching fare by trading in some of the candy for these Pumpkin Cupcakes.

Please savor these pumpkin spice cupcakes.

INGREDIENTS:

FOR THE CUPCAKES:

• 15 ounces of pumpkin puree
• 4 large eggs
• 2 sticks of unsalted butter
• 2 cups of all-purpose flour
• 1 cup of packed light brown sugar
• 1 cup of granulated sugar
• ½ cup of toasted and crushed toasted pecans
• 1 teaspoon of baking soda
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon of baking powder
• ½ teaspoon of ginger
• ⅛ teaspoon of nutmeg
• ⅛ teaspoon of ground cloves
• ⅛ teaspoon of ground allspice

FOR THE BUTTERCREAM:

• 2½ sticks of unsalted and softened butter
• 8 cups of confectioners’ sugar
• ⅔ cup of maple syrup
• ½ cup of milk
• 2 teaspoons of pure vanilla extract
• Yellow, Green, Red, and Blue food coloring

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Mix the flour, baking powder, soda, salt, and spices in a medium bowl. Set aside. Prepare a cupcake tin by inserting paper liners. Put the oven temperature at 350 degrees.
2. Butter should be beaten for 1 minute with an electric mixer until it is a pale yellow color. Cream together the light brown sugar and granulated sugar. If necessary, use a spoon or a scraper to clean out the bowls. On low speed, add the eggs one at a time. Beat in the vanilla extract at a low speed until well incorporated.
3. Add the dry ingredients slowly while the mixer is running, and mix until a smooth batter forms. The pumpkin should be added and mixed up thoroughly.
4. Fill the cupcake liners about two-thirds of the way with ice cream using an ice cream scoop. A toothpick put into the center should come out clean after about 20 to 25 minutes in the oven. After ten to fifteen minutes, remove the cake to cool completely.
5. Create the frosting while the cupcakes cool. Cream the butter for 2 minutes with an electric mixer. Mix the vanilla extract, milk, and four cups of powdered sugar. Mix thoroughly. Put in the maple syrup and blend it up. Next, stir in 1 cup at a time of confectioner’s sugar, making sure it’s fully incorporated before adding more. It’s important to get every last bit of butter integrated, so scrape the sides of the bowl.
6. To decorate, separate your frosting into four sections, one each of green, brown, orange, and white. Green and brown should be given approximately a half cup each, orange about an inch and a half, and the remaining white the rest.
7. This was merely a guide, but here’s a brief summary of the steps I used to get the desired hues. Achieve the proper shade of green by gradually adding drops of green food coloring to the frosting. The brown frosting is made by combining equal portions of red and yellow food coloring with a few drops of blue. Use primarily yellow food coloring to achieve a bright orange, and then add a few drops of red to deepen the hue.
8. We’ll move on to cake hints now. The typical star base was employed as the foundation. Create a “patch” for your pumpkins by piping white icing in a spiral shape.
9. The pumpkins should then be piped on using a standard circle tip. Create an approximately spherical form by squeezing out the icing and bouncing your wrist as you go. Use a vertical squeezing motion to apply the frosting, rather than a swirling motion, to the pumpkins.
10. The next step is to fill a plastic ziploc bag with brown icing through a tiny hole cut into one corner of the bag (the hole should be no more than two or three millimeters in diameter). Apply a dab to each pumpkin’s top to resemble a stem.
11. Finally, for the green icing, fill half the bag with green frosting and snip a very little hole (1.5-2 mm in diameter) in one corner. Small vines can be piped around the pumpkins in any pattern you like.
12. The next step is to grab a vertically oriented, centrally notched cake tip. While there are many various cake tips available, we found that this one produced the best results for the leaves in this recipe. Before you start decorating the actual cupcakes, try making some practice leaves on a plate. Twist the piping bag as you near the finish of the process.
13. Crush some pecans and sprinkle them on top of each cupcake before serving.