Gingerbread Cupcakes with Pumpkin Cream Cheese Frosting

Psst…looking for something a little different but still pumpkin-y for Thanksgiving? These cupcakes are beyond delicious, I tell you! We made these back in October as we were following along on a Halloween countdown calendar. One of our activities was to make and decorate cupcakes for our neighbors. Of course, we made a few for ourselves as well.

I wasn’t in the mood to make from-scratch cupcakes on this particular day, so I (happily) had a Krusteaz Gingerbread mix in the pantry. I really like that their mixes don’t have “bad” ingredients, and all of the ones we’ve tried have been quite tasty.  If you’d like to make them from scratch, try this recipe from King Arthur Flour.

For the frosting (and, really, isn’t that why we even eat cupcakes?), I got a little creative with what I had in the refrigerator.  I knew I wanted a cream cheese frosting and thought the pumpkin cream cheese I’d just bought would be yummy in the frosting. If you can’t find pumpkin cream cheese, just stir a couple of tablespoons of pumpkin puree (out of a can) into the frosting and use closer to three cups of powdered sugar than two cups.

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Frosting

• 6 oz pumpkin cream cheese, at room temperature
• 4 Tbsp butter, at room temperature
• 2 to 3 cups powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

1. Blend together cream cheese and butter, then stir in powdered sugar and vanilla. Start with two cups powdered sugar, then add more bit by bit until it’s the right consistency.

2. Spread generously on cupcakes, then sprinkle with pumpkin pie spice or cinnamon.

One last suggestion, if you have your Thanksgiving menu all planned and can’t find room for these (but, really?) or if you just don’t want pumpkin in your frosting, lemon or orange extract added to the cream cheese frosting would be delightful, as well. I think of lemon and gingerbread as a Christmas flavor, so I’ll be mixing up another batch with lemon in the frosting. Really soon.

This is enough frosting for 24 cupcakes.  Or 12 cupcakes and as many graham crackers as you can eat while your kids are outside raking leaves. Or so I’ve heard.