If you're looking for a super delicious and easy dessert for this Thanksgiving, I definitely recommend giving these darlin little pumpkin spice cupcakes with cream cheese icing a try! They are heavenly! I adapted this recipe from a bundt cake recipe I found on www.cdkitchen.com. I added the cream cheese icing, which I think kinda makes them, but you could easily leave the icing off and just call them Pumpkin Muffins (which is EXACTLY what I did when I ran out of icing.)
You'll need,
1 box Spice Cake Mix
1 small box instant vanilla pudding
1/2 c vegetable oil
1/2 c water
3 eggs
1/2 can of pumpkin (about 8 oz)
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1 tsp vanilla
icing:
8 oz cream cheese
1/4 c butter
3 c powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
To start, preheat your oven to 350 degrees, and place all of your dry ingredients into your mixer. Sorry my bowl is dirty. I was on my second batch, and felt that cleaning the bowl was unneccessary (aka, I was lazy).
And mix for a couple of minutes on a medium speed, until it looks lovely like this:
Then fill your muffin cups about 2/3 of the way, because these little babies will RISE! On my first batch I overfilled to 3/4 full, and they had some serious muffin tops - which would actually be fine if you want to make muffins out of these (and yes, as previously mentioned, they are delicious even without icing). But since I'm making cupcakes I tried to get it under control for the rest of the batches. Bake for about 15 min, depending on your oven. When they are done, they will spring back when you touch them. Also, note that I was making mini-cupcakes - regular size cupcakes will take a few minutes longer.
To make the icing, allow cream cheese and butter to come to room temperature (which takes a couple of hours, and there's really now way to rush it because all the microwave does is ruin it). Then beat the two together until they are creamy. Add the vanilla, followed by the sugar 1/4 cup at a time until you have a bowl full of ooey-gooey loveliness. Notice the "ribbons" of icing in the bowl - that's the consistency you're looking for - or the consistency I was looking for anyways. If you prefer a glaze, just add less powdered sugar, for something thicker, add more. Also, keep in mind that different brands of cream cheese and sugar will yield different results, so don't stress, just make adjustments as needed (and, fyi, I used 1/3 less fat cream cheese).
Normally I don't mess with piping because I like a whipped, home-style look, but since this was for a wedding reception after all I decided to pipe. If you don't already know the above trick for filling your piping bag, you should definitely give it a try! When you get your bag all full and twisted tight, just pipe away! I LOVE how shiney these little guys are!
On a side, completely unrelated note, I update an older post of Progress Shots too, so check it out and let me know what ya think!
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