Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes
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These cupcakes are light and fluffy, excellent in texture and flavor. I blend mascarpone cheese with vanilla buttercream for the frosting instead of the cream cheese frosting from the original recipe. The recipe below is adapted from allrecipes.com (http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Pumpkin-Spice-Cupcakes) and the buttercream from Perfect Cakes by Nick Malgieri.
Author: Anne Press
Ingredients
- 2¼ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- ½ teaspoon ground ginger
- ½ teaspoon ground cloves
- ½ teaspoon ground allspice
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ cup butter, softened
- 1 cup white sugar
- ⅓ cup brown sugar
- 2 eggs, room temperature
- ¾ cup milk
- 1 cup pumpkin puree
- 2 Heath Bars, crushed
Instructions
- Preheat an oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease and flour 24 regular or 48 mini muffin cups, or line with paper muffin liners.
- Sift together the flour, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, clove, allspice, salt, baking powder, and baking soda; set aside.
- Beat ½ cup of butter, the white sugar, and brown sugar with an electric mixer in a large bowl until light and fluffy. The mixture should be noticeably lighter in color.
- Add the room-temperature eggs one at a time, allowing each egg to blend into the butter mixture before adding the next. Stir in the milk and pumpkin puree after the last egg – expect the mixture will separate a bit.
- Stir in the flour mixture, mixing until just incorporated. Pour the batter into the prepared muffin cups.
- Bake in the preheated oven - 25 min for 24 cupcakes, 10 min for 48 cupcakes - or until golden and the tops spring back when lightly pressed.
- Cool in the pans for 5 minutes before removing to cool completely on a wire rack.
- Once the cupcakes are cool, frost with the buttercream icing and top with Heath Bar crunch.
Mascarpone Buttercream
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Total time
This is a simple patisserie quality buttercream that can be flavored in many different ways. I adapted the mascarpone buttercream for this cupcake recipe – you can add chocolate, coffee, liquor, berry puree to the buttercream base.
Author: Anne Press
Recipe type: Dessert
Ingredients
- ¾ cup egg whites (5 large eggs)
- 1 ½ cup granulated sugar
- Pinch of salt
- 1 pound unsalted butter, softened
- 1 ½ tablespoons vanilla extract
- 8 oz. mascarpone cheese
Instructions
- Beat the egg whites and sugar in the bowl from your mixer and place over a pot of boiling water. Wisk gently until the sugar is dissolved and the ingredients are hot (130° on a candy thermometer).
- Attach bowl to mixer and, using the whisk attachment, beat on medium speed about 5 minutes or until the bottom of the bowl feels cool.
- Stop the bowl, remove the whisk and attach the paddle. Beating at a low speed, add the butter in 8-10 additions. The butter cream will be soft and fluffy.
- When all the butter is combined, increase the mixer speed and continue to beat until the buttercream is thick and smooth – 5 to 10 minutes.
- Once the buttercream is firm and smooth, add the vanilla a little at a time.
- Combine 8 oz. of buttercream with 8 oz. of mascarpone.
- Freeze or refrigerate the excess buttercream; it will need to come to room temperature to be spreadable and will need to be whipped a bit. Lots of opinions on how long it keeps – week in the refrigerator, 3 months in the freezer is a solid bet.
