Halloween Pumpkin Cupcakes

I am still technically on a baking hiatus, but the cute Halloween related cupcake decorations at Target got to me. I decided that I NEEDED to bake cupcakes and bring them to work. The decision for what kind of cupcake was easy....pumpkin! I had seen a recipe in my google reader at Fresh From Cate's Kitchen and I instantly knew I wanted to make them! Pumpkin cupcakes with maple cream cheese frosting... how good does that sound?!

Along with the Halloween cupcake liners, sprinkles, and carved pumpkin flags that I planned to adorn the cupcakes with, I thought I'd try my hand at more decorating with royal icing. I had some leftover thinned royal icing that I wanted to re-thicken and make spiders with. I completely forgot about thickening it, and ended up working with the thinned icing. After about 24 hours of drying, they were completely dry, and I think they turned out really cute! I used an offset spatula to carefully dislodge them from the parchment paper, and only broke one leg. :-)

Behold... my army of spiders!

The cupcake recipe was soooo easy to throw together. I love the recipes where you just throw together all the dry ingredients, throw together all the wet ingredients, mix them together gently and you are done! The frosting recipe makes enough to quite liberally frost the 18 cupcakes I made, so if you are following the cupcake recipe and only making 12, you could cut down the frosting recipe a bit. Overall, the two go SO well together, the flavors really play off one another. Great dessert!

Pumpkin Cupcakes with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting
From: Fresh From Cate's Kitchen
Yield: 12 cupcakes

For the cupcakes:

2 cups all purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1/4 tsp ground cloves

1/3 cup granulated sugar

1/3 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1/4 cup applesauce

2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

3/4 cup buttermilk

3/4 cup canned pumpkin

Preheat oven to 350 and line a cupcake pan with paper liners.

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, spices, and sugars.

In a medium bowl, whisk together remaining ingredients.

Gently stir the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients, and pour into the prepared pan.

Bake for about 18 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Cool completely on a wire rack

For the frosting:

4 tbsp butter, softened

8 oz cream cheese, softened

1/4 cup maple syrup

3 cups powdered sugar

With the paddle attachment, beat together the butter and cream cheese.

Add maple syrup and beat on medium until combined.

Mix in the powdered sugar, one cup at a time, then mix on medium-high until smooth.

Frost each cupcake liberally.