Our sister-in-law Marie’s birthday was Friday.  We’ve reached the point where we don’t really celebrate them.  A phone call, a message on Facebook… Very 21st century.

But at the same time, a bit of real-time recognition is always nice.

Pumpkin Cupcakes seemed to fit the bill, today.

If we had baked a whole cake it would have been greeted with heartfelt thanks and a demand to take half of it back home with us.  Cupcakes were the perfect idea.

I decided we needed to be seasonal.  I had a pumpkin cake recipe I hadn’t made in years and lots of homemade pumpkin butter.

As I was getting ingredients together, I realized we had no white sugar in the house!  Victor had used the last of it for the peanut butter cookies.  I had put it on the shopping list – but hadn’t yet gone shopping.

I had plenty of brown sugar so I decided to make a substitution.  I’ve baked long enough to know when ingredients can be changed out and when they can’t.  I had pretty much made up this recipe in the first place, so I felt comfortable making the change.

And it worked just fine – maybe even better.  They came out with a really nice pumpkin/spice flavor.

Pumpkin Cake

Cake:

  • 2 1/4 cups cake flour
  • 2 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 2 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp ginger
  • 1/4 tsp allspice
  • 3/4 cup Pumpkin Butter
  • 1/3 cup vanilla yogurt
  • 1/3 cup honey
  • 1 tbsp vanilla
  • 3/4 cup butter
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • 3 large eggs

Frosting

  • 8oz cream cheese, room temperature
  • 1 stick butter, room temperature
  • 2 cups powdered sugar (or more)
  • 1/2 cup Pumpkin Butter

Make cake:

Preheat oven to 350°. Line cupcake pans with paper holders. Sift  flour and next 5 ingredients into medium bowl. Whisk pumpkin, yogurt, honey and vanilla in small bowl to blend. Using mixer, beat butter in large bowl until fluffy. Gradually beat in sugar. Beat in eggs 1 at a time. Mix dry ingredients into butter mixture alternately with pumpkin mixture.

Fill cupcake tins about 2/3 full. Bake about 25 minutes. Cool.

Make frosting:

Beat cream cheese and butter together.  Add pumpkin butter and mix well.  Add powdered sugar and mix until creamy.  Add more sugar, as necessary, to gain desired consistency.

I used large cupcake liners and got 20 cupcakes.  Using standard liners would net 24 cupcakes.

And look what Victor just brought home from Marie’s!

She made us Caramel Apples!

There is no shortage of desserts tonight at our house!