Have I got a recipe for you! Tiny little mini pumpkin cupcakes! They are the perfect size for eating a whole bunch and not feeling like you ate any. They are so little, they don’t count. So go ahead. Have six. Its ok, because they are small. Just kidding. That’s how I sometimes feel about these though. I want to keep eating them! My amazing friend Jen made these for a Girls Night. She also had chocolate toffee cupcakes and Italian Sodas. She gave me the recipe. Thanks Jen. 
So, I guess I am a hypocrite. I made these cupcakes, but didn’t have time to frost them right away. So I put a paper towel over the top and wrote “Don’t Eat” across the top so that my husband wouldn’t eat them before they were finished. Never mind the two empty spots in the muffin tin. Wasn’t me…….. he he he.
The beauty of this blog, is that I’m here to make all the mistakes for you so that you don’t have to. And if there is a mistake to be made, I will make it. Trust me. Here are some do’s and don’t that I learned from making these cupcakes:
DON’T:
- Don’t realize that you need room temperature butter to make cream cheese frosting, pull a stick of butter from the freezer, and set it on top of the burner that is still warm from when you were hard boiling eggs to make egg eyeballs for Halloween. It melts and makes a mess. Now you don’t have to make that mistake, because I made it for you.
- Don’t spoon the pumpkin into the little mini muffin tin liners. It sticks to the liner and the spoon and its difficult.
- Don’t realize that spooning the pumpkin into the liners isn’t working and proceed to scoop all the pumpkin batter into a large plastic bag, put a big piping tip in the bag, cut a whole that is too big in the bag, squeeze the batter, and explode the piping tip through the bag along with lots of pumpkin batter. It makes a big mess.
DO:
- Place all the pumpkin batter into a large Ziploc baggie. Forget the piping tip. Just cut a medium size whole in a corner of the bag. Squeeze the batter into the mini cupcake tin liners from the corner in the bag. Forget the piping tip. Not necessary.
- Lick the spatula and the beaters and the bowl after making the cream cheese frosting. And maybe even pipe some right onto your tongue, for good measure. Use cream cheese with 1/3 less fat. That way you can eat 1/3 more. 🙂
- Buy REAL apple cider. Not apple juice. Make sure the ingredients are: apples. It should be cloudy, not clear like apple juice.
- Pour yourself a glass of apple cider straight from the jug while you are making the apple cider glaze. Don’t worry if all the cups and glasses are dirty. Use the fancy goblet. It will make you feel fancy and special.
Ingredients:
For the Cup Cakes:
- 1 box spice cake mix
- 1 (15oz) can pumpkin puree
- 4 TBSP. mayo or sour cream
For the Apple Cider Glaze:
- 1 C. powdered sugar
- 2 TBSP. real apple cider
- 1/2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
For the Cream Cheese Frosting:
- 8 oz. cream cheese, room temp
- 4 TBSP. butter, room temp
- 1 tsp. vanilla
- 1 C. powdered sugar
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Line a mini muffin tin with white paper liners. Mix together the cake mix, pumpkin puree, and mayo.
2. Cut the tip off a large Ziploc baggie. Transfer batter to the baggie. Squeeze the batter into the muffin tin liners. Fill each one to the top. Bake for 15-20 minutes. If you are going to make larger cup cakes, they may take longer. Let them cool completely.
3. Meanwhile, whisk together the glaze ingredients in a small bowl. Pick up a baked and cooled cup cake and turn upside down. Dip into the glaze. Let it drip before turning it right side up. Repeat with all the cupcakes.
4. Let the glaze harden and make the cream cheese frosting. Mix together the cream cheese, butter, vanilla, and powdered sugar until combined. Transfer to a baggie with a star piping tip. Squirt a little blob of cream cheese frosting onto each cupcake.
Enjoy!!!
Recipe from my friend Jen, who got the idea from Big Red Kitchen
Other Awesome Pumpkin Recipes:
You are kidding me!! This was Eleni's request for her birthday yesterday instead of cake, so I tweaked an applesauce cupcake recipe and added pumpkin instead . . . they were dry. But never fear–I have more pumpkin and I will give this one a try next.
You are the cutest–I loved reading this post!
you are hilarious! loved this recipe and all the do's and don'ts!
Yum!! these look like the best cupcakes ever!! I am so into pumpkin right now and want to make these treats for Thanksgiving!! Thanks for this awesome recipe.
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