Love for Pumpkin

I was inspired this week to create a pumpkin buttercream frosting.  Which then led to what do I put the pumpkin frosting on top of - a chocolate cupcake, vanilla?  Why not just dive in pumpkin first - Spiced Pumpkin Cupcakes with Pumpkin Buttercream Frosting.  Now that's a mouthful of pumpkin!

So I began doing some research on recipes.  What makes the best pumpkin cupcake?  So many choices!  I decided I wanted a really good pumpkin flavor, so I began by using 3/4 cup pumpkin puree.  Attempting to simulate a pumpkin pie flavor while keeping a nice cake texture, I added nutmeg and cinnamon to help bring out the flavor.


The batter reached the flavor I was going for, so into the oven they went!  I brought the cupcakes out slightly early to make sure they were as moist as possible.  

The cupcakes came out perfectly.  Time for the pumpkin buttercream!  Traditional buttercream only uses butter, powdered sugar, vanilla and milk.  To amp this up with pumpkin flavor I added 3/4 cup pumpkin puree, cinnamon, ginger, salt and pumpkin pie spice.  The texture is very similar to buttercream, but be sure to use less milk so it isn't too soft.  The flavor is unbelievable.  Pumpkin on pumpkin, it doesn't get better than this!