Spiced Pumpkin Cupcakes...

As Halloween descends, I thought it was a perfect excuse to carve a pumpkin and use the leftovers to make some delicious baked treats. 

After trying many pumpkin pie recipes previously, I decided this year to bake something different and settled on a cupcake. So armed with my favourite carrot cake recipe as the basis - thinking that the pumpkin would work in much the same way that carrot does in baking - I modified the ingredients to suit the pumpkin. Here is the recipe.

Spiced Pumpkin Cupcakes

Makes 12-14

Cakes:

• 145g golden caster sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 120 m sunflower oil
• 200g self-raising flour
• 1½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1 tsp mixed spice
• 1tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp ginger
• grated zest 1 orange
• 200g pumpkin (grated) or butternut squash
• 175g sultanas or raisins

Syrup Glaze:

• 2 tbsp orange juice (roughly 1 small orange)
• 40g golden caster sugar 

Orange Cream Cheese Frosting:

• 450g icing sugar
• 110g unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 150g full fat cream cheese
• 1 tsp of orange essence
• Orange food colouring (if desired) - I used Wilton "Tangerine"

Method

• Pre-heat the oven to 160c and line a 12 hole muffin tin with paper cases
• Whisk the sugar, eggs and oil together in a bowl using an electric whisk for 2-3 minutes until it thickens and looks a golden colour
• Sift together the flour, bicarbonate of soda and all the spices into the bowl. Stir together, then fold in the orange zest, pumpkin and sultanas.

The base mixture



• Spoon the mixture into the cases (roughly 2 level dessert spoons per case)





Filled cases ready to bake


• Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes until springy when lightly pressed in the centre.
• While the cakes are baking make the syrup by heating all the ingredients in a saucepan until the sugar dissolves
• When the cakes are baked, take out of the oven and make small holes in them with a skewer, making sure that you don’t pierce the bottom of the case. Brush over the syrup and leave to cool on a wire rack.

The cakes ready for frosting

• To make the frosting beat the butter until soft. Then add the icing sugar a spoon full at a time. Finally add the orange essence (or juice), cream cheese and colouring (if using) and combine. Don't over mix as the cream cheese can loosen too much. This can be refrigerated until you need it.
• When the cakes are cooled fill a piping bag fitted with a 1M nozzle with the topping and pipe onto the cupcakes. Decorate with sprinkles or pumpkin faces!
• Et voila - enjoy with a nice cup of tea!



The finished cupcakes decorated with a few sprinkles



What is your favourite Halloween recipe?

V x