For those of you who want to make something Halloween-inspired but not super spooky, these mini cupcakes may be the perfect treat! I followed this recipe but baked a miniature cupcake version instead and made my own homemade maple frosting for them. Who knew maple and pumpkin go that well together? I didn’t!
Sift together 2 1/4 cup flour, 1 tbsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp salt, 3/4 tsp ground cinnamon, 1/2 tsp ground ginger and 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg.
I had some of the pumpkin spice mix that I made for my mincemeat pies so I just used 2 tsp of that.
Cream together 1/2 cup softened unsalted butter with 1 1/3 cup sugar.
Beat 2 eggs and add to creamed butter and sugar.
Add 1 cup of mashed or canned pumpkin. I had some in my freezer so I thawed and drained it.
Alternate adding the dry ingredients with 3/4 cup of milk. Finish blending with the dry ingredients.
You can fold in some nuts if you like but to half the batter I added some chocolate chips.
I greased a mini muffin tin and divvied out the dough with a mini ice cream scoop.
I baked them in a preheated 375F oven for around 10-12 minutes until a toothpick came out clean.
I chopped up some of the candied orange and lemon peels I had made for my mincemeat and rolled them around in some sugar.
I made a maple cream cheese frosting which I will be writing about later when I do a post about some maple sandwich cookies I made. Yum! I decorated the cupcake with the frosting and sprinkled with the candied peel.
I made half a batch of more “subtle” cupcakes with no chocolate chips or candied peel and the other half with both.
You see Reg is taking all of these in for a charity bake sale at his work today. I wanted to be sure that people who enjoy subtle flavours had a more classic mini cupcake and those who want something more unusual and at the same time fancy would have these to try. I am so nervous! It is not very often people eat my food. I do hope they like them! We did, LOL.
I loved the maple combined with the pumpkin. I do wish they had been a bit more moist but that is probably because I drained the pumpkin before adding it to the batter.
More Halloween treats to come this weekend so make sure to come back and check them out! Don’t forget to also enter my Halloween candy contest. Winners will be announced Halloween and I have made anonymous comments available but please don’t forget your email address!
How lucky for Reg’s co-workers to get their hands on some of Suzie the Foodie’s homemade cupcakes, wish I could’ve had some 🙂 I’m sure they disappeared very quickly.