This month’s MSC selection was chosen by Kim of What the Whisk: pumpkin patch cupcakes!! To say that I love pumpkin in baked goods would be a bit of an understatement. A few weeks ago I started hearing rumors that there would be a shortage of canned pumpkin this year and I panicked. I only had one can of pumpkin leftover from last year and I knew that wouldn’t be enough, so I started keeping an eye out for canned pumpkin in the store. For a while all I found were bare shelves, but finally, I came upon a glorious site – boxes and boxes of canned pumpkin! I stocked up but since then I’ve seen plenty of pumpkin so I’m not sure about the accuracy of those initial rumors.
The full recipe yields 32 cupcakes and that’s a lot, especially since I’ve been baking like crazy, so I decided to quarter this recipe, which yielded 8 cupcakes. The pumpkin is one obvious fall ingredient in the cupcakes, but there are others: great fall spices, including cinnamon, ginger, clove and nutmeg. The batter was a gorgeous light orange color and as they baked my house just smelled better and better.
Martha tops these with her cream cheese frosting, which I’ve now made 3 separate times. It is, without a doubt, my favorite frosting ever. The kind of frosting you want to eat out of the bowl with a spoon, not that I’d ever do that π I borrowed an idea from the wonderful Hello, Cupcake! book to decorate the cupcakes. Well, I should say I borrowed a portion of an idea. I tinted most of the frosting a light orange color and just a bit a few shades darker. The light orange frosting covers the cupcakes and the darker orange is used to create the ribs. The stems of the pumpkins are made by cutting green Twizzlers (which you can find in the rainbow package of Twizzlers). In the Hello, Cupcake! book, they cover the pumpkin cupcakes with orange colored sanding sugar, but despite visiting 4 stores yesterday, I couldn’t find any. Margaret gave me a great idea to tint white sanding sugar, but I was running out of light to photograph so I didn’t get to try it this time. I thought these turned out cute, but the orange sanding sugar would have made them even better: shiny and sparkly pumpkins!
Ok, but how did they taste? Amazing!! I loved the cupcakes. Spicy and tender, they were the perfect fall treat! Many thanks to Kim for hosting this week’s fun selection! To try this recipe, pick up a copy of Martha’s Cupcake book and please stop by our site to see how the other bakers fared with their cupcakes!
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Super cute, Tracey! I think they look great, even though they aren’t sparkly.
It is really easy to tint sugar – I’ve done it many times – you can even tint powdered sugar, which surprised me! NEXT TIME! π
LOVE how you decorated these, and those wrappers are very cute. I am obviously not shopping enough and need to get out there and look for cute cupcake wrappers…peer pressure and all. Great job. Now go get that can of sweet potatoes for the TWD this next week so we can bake them together this afternoon.
Adorable. No sanding sugar needed!
These are adorable. Great idea.
They look so cute and festive! I took the easy route this month by just using sprinkles, since I was the only one that ate them. I thought they were really good, though.
I had trouble finding pumpkin too and stocked up when I finally got my hands on some! These look great! I love the way you decorated them. And orange sanding sugar is a great idea for next time!
I LOVE these! They’re fun without screaming “kiddie.” Definitely bookmarking.
How cute are those! I think they look great even without the orange decorating sugar. I saw a huge display of pumpkin at our store the other day so I think I’m going to go back after work and stock up! It wouldn’t be the holidays without pumpkin and I’m a little nervous to cut and make my own (more on that Sunday).
OH my word I love the way that you decorated these! Such a great idea!
Your cupcakes are wonderful. I love the decorating. They look great without the sanding sugar. Thanks so much for baking along with me this month.
absolutely the cutest thing i’ve seen all day π
Too cute! I made pumpkin cupcakes this week, too!
I think these cupcakes were adorable without the sanding sugar and Jack was mighty impressed with the decorating. Fall just cries for the flavors of nutmeg and cinnamon and the nutmeg really stood out in these. My favorite- the green twizzlers as stems! Who knew?? These were definitely a hit!
Your frosting looks so cute, great idea with the sanding sugar.
These are so cute, well done! Very creative with the decorating, and I think they look great even without the sugar. Last weekend I found my first cake decorating shop since moving to London, you can imagine how crazy I went!!
Aaah. Beautiful! And delicious. How smart you were to only make eight. Mine have been calling to me from the kitchen all day.
Wow, what a way to outshine!
Your pumpkin cupcakes are perfect! NICE NICE NICE!
Love the wrappers too!
I think I need to stock up on canned pumpkin, too. Just in case, you never know. π
Oh, those are just adorable! They sound and look delicious! I really have to get that book…
Those are really cute!! I’ll try them when I have some time off!!
The green twizzlers were a great idea!
so cute!!! I love your take on the decorations
Your decorating is soooooo cute! Good job!
That is an impressive decorating job, absolutely stunning. Seeing pumpkin cupcakes is making me look forward to the pumpkin cookies for SMS.
these are so incredibly cute!!!
wow tracey – these look fabulous! Love the decorations – so unique and wonderful. Perfect for halloween – and the liners are great! Strange about the pumpkin…. I haven’t seen much either! Nicely done this month – truly!
omg Tracey, these are so cute!
Your cupcakes look great! You don’t need sanding sugar.
I love your version – very creative and beautiful!
I simply refuse to believe those cupcakes could get any cuter – I want one of my very own! Love what you’ve done with them and glad to know they were tasty too. I’m up for anything pumpkin.
Aww, your cupcakes look adorable! I just love what you did with them!! π
They look so cute! I love how you decorated your little pumpkins. Hello Cupcake has such good ideas. I still haven’t tried the frosting since I have always had something else to use. It sounds good though!
Too cute! I love your stems. These were delicious.
I love the idea using the licorice on top!! Nice job!
Adorable and so creative!!
Cute, fun, yummy!
Awesome decoration Tracey. I absolutely love them!!!
Your pictures are amazing, and so is your decorating. These cupcakes truly were amazing.
These are adorable. I love how you changed it up a bit. I need to be more creative. tHanks for the inspiration!
Those are really cute, Tracey. =) I like the wrappers you used, too.
I love the way you decorated them! What a cute idea.