Autumn Stumpcakes

As I'm about 3/4 of the way through my ambitious Thanksgiving pastry endeavor, I think it's appropriate to post a recipe. This isn't what I'm making at the moment, but Sarah and I got together last Saturday to bake, drink wine, and watch Miss Marple lay the smackdown on all sorts of unsavory types. This recipe was one of the ones in the Cupcake Deck I got for her cakeday. We also used her (pink!) silicone cupcake pan, which worked just as amazingly as I suspected it might. Anyway, these lil' cakes are delicious. Enjoy!

Pumpkin Ginger Cupcakes

Ingredients

Cupcakes
1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. ground ginger
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
1 cup sugar
1 cup canned pumpkin
3 large eggs
1/4 cup crystallized ginger, cut into 1/8 - 1/4 inch pieces

Frosting
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
6 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
1 tsp. vanilla extract
3 cups powdered sugar
1/2 - 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 - 2 tsp. whole milk


Directions

Cupcakes

Pre-heat oven to 325 degrees.

Sift all the dry ingredients together and set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat butter, sugar, and pumpkin until smooth. Mix in eggs and crystallized ginger, and then slowly mix in the dry ingredients until everything is incorporated. Spoon batter into your muffin tin. If you are using a silicone one, you can fill the cups all the way to the top. If not, place cupcake papers into a metal tin and fill halfway. Bake until firm, about 20 minutes or so.

Cool on rack.


Frosting

Beat butter, cream cheese, and vanilla until smooth. Add powdered sugar until frosting is smooth and light.

Set aside 1/4 cup of frosting, and mix cinnamon into this until it turns a light brown color. Add a touch of milk, so frosting is thick but pourable. Place in a sealable freezer bag with all air pressed out, and cut a tiny hole in one of the bag's corners. This is now a makeshift pastry bag.

Frost cooled cupcakes with white frosting then, using the brown frosting, pipe a dot in the center of the cupcake, and two concentric circles around the dot. Drag a toothpick from the cupcake center to the edge to create the spiderweb pattern.