Halloween Baking: Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Icing

Every year I purchase pumpkins from the supermarket to carve, however this year I decided to go pumpkin picking (which was amazing by the way) and ended up buying five pumpkins. I didn’t want the ones that I wasn’t going to use to carve to go to waste so decided to bake with one of them. First I checked how hard it was to make pumpkin puree and after a quick search on google I found out that it was actually quite simple. It took me a while to decide what to bake but decided on pumpkin spice cupcakes with cream cheese icing as you can’t go wrong with cake! I wasn’t completely sure how they were going to turn out but I’m happy to say that they were delicious and am really glad I tried cooking with pumpkins, they went down a treat and I’ll probably end up making another batch before the end of the month. This recipe makes 24 cupcakes so you will have plenty for yourself and to share around too!

For the cupcakes you will need:
110g butter
280g plain flour
5 tbsp brown sugar
160g caster sugar
2 medium eggs
180ml milk
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp mixed spice
250g pumpkin puree
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 bicarbonate of soda

For the cream cheese icing you will need:
350g icing sugar
200g cream cheese
50g butter
1/2 tsp cinnamon

1. First you will want to preheat the oven to 200C and then make the pumpkin puree. Take the top off the pumpkin, cut it in half then scoop out all the seeds, after this cut it into quarters.
2. Place skin side up onto a baking tray with parchment paper and bake in the oven for 20 minutes, you will know that it’s cooked when the flesh is soft.
3. Once this has cooked remove the skin, cut into chunks and blend with either a hand blender or food processor. That’s the pumpkin puree finished!
4. In a separate bowl mix together the butter, caster sugar and soft brown sugar until light and fluffy.
5. Mix the eggs individually into the bowl, if the mixture looks like it’s going to curdle then add a little bit of plain flour.
6. Add the cinnamon, mixed spice, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda.
7. Stir in the milk and pumpkin puree.
8. Gently fold in the plain flour then spoon the mixture into cupcake cases and bake in the over for 15-20 minutes. Leave to cool before icing.
9. To make the cream cheese icing you will first want to mix together the cream cheese and butter, I use an electronic hand whisk to do this.
10. Add the cinnamon then slowly add the icing sugar.
11. Pipe or spoon the icing onto the cupcakes and you’re finished!

I hadn’t really baked with pumpkin before and didn’t realise how delicious pumpkin baked goods were, I’m definitely going to venture out a little more in the future with other recipes that I hadn’t previously thought about making. If you have any ideas of what else to make with pumpkins let me know as I’d love to try something else.

Rebecca x