The most marvelous smells are coming from my kitchen. I’m making pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese frosting for my knit group. It’s an easy recipe that starts with a yellow cake mix. I always get the ones that require butter in the ingredients instead of oil and here’s why – when someone hands you a nice warm piece of toast do you dither around about whether to put canola oil or butter on it? I thought not. My love affair with butter will never end.
The ingredients called for pumpkin pie spice so I bought it. When I was ready to bake it suddenly occurred to me to question what the difference is between pumpkin pie spice and apple pie spice. Since I’m trying to document an economical kitchen for my younger cooks, I wondered if the two could be interchangeable. Here are the ingredients for apple pie spice: cinnamon, nutneg, cloves, and ginger. Here are the ingredients for the pumpkin pie spice: cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice. Hmmm. I looked up allspice and found that it’s a berry named allspice because it tastes like cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and ginger. Not kidding, my answer was from Yahoo.com. It seemed like a side-by-side tasting was called for. I know it’s kind of weird to taste spices right out of the little box, but I did it anyway and can honestly say the taste was practically identical! So my advice is buy one or the other, but no kitchen needs both. I think I’ll give one to Richard.
Here is another fork in the road of my great week of cooking with pumpkin; I’ve always believed I had to use Libby’s pumpkin puree. Maybe my mom told me to or maybe I read it somewhere, but anyway Richard claims I said he shouldn’t make a pumpkin pie if he couldn’t find Libby’s. The store I visited today didn’t have Libby’s so I bought the store brand. I had one can of Libby’s left and was obviously brimming with curiosity so I did, guess what, a taste test! The ingredients for both cans said pumpkin and they both tasted like pumpkin. Sorry Richard, cook away with any old can of pumpkin you can find as long as pumpkin is the only ingredient and it’s not expired.
The cupcakes are out of the oven and I’m trying hard not to eat one (with butter). When they cool I’ll ice them and decorate with candy corn. I expect we’ll have some sticky fingers for knitting! As my wonderful friend Jean used to say, ”Too bad so sad”.
Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients
1 box yellow cake mix (plus the ingredients called for in the package directions)
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice or apple pie spice
15 oz can pumpkin puree
2 8 oz pkg cream cheese, at room temperature
2 c confectioners’ sugar
24 pieces candy corn
Directions
Heat oven to 350° degrees.
Line two 12-cup muffin tins with paper liners.
Prepare the cake mix as directed but with the following change: Add the pumpkin pie spice and substitute the whole can of pumpkin puree for the water called for in the package directions.
Divide the batter among the prepared muffin tins and bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out clean, 18 to 22 minutes. Let cool.
Meanwhile, using an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese and sugar until creamy. Spread on the cupcakes and top each with a piece of candy corn.
