cupcakes & couture

Pumpkin Cupcakes with Whipped Cream Frosting

Last night I made these cute pumpkin cupcakes with whipped cream frosting! (The original recipe is from Your Cup Of Cake but I adapted it a bit.) I love the golden Oreos on the bottoms of the cupcakes - it’s like they have pumpkin pie crusts! The light whipped frosting was a perfect match for the spice-y pumpkin cakes.  

Pumpkin Pie cupcakes

• 24 double stuff golden Oreos
• ½ cup vegetable oil
• ½ cup cinnamon applesauce
• 3 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 ½ cups sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 15 ounces pumpkin puree (the small can)
• 2 ¾ cup flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Whipped Cream Frosting

• 2 pints heavy whipping cream
• 4 teaspoons vanilla
• 2 cup powdered sugar
• cinnamon to sprinkle on top
• jack-o-lantern peeps to use as toppers

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line pans with 24 cupcake liners. I used black liners with polka dots to stick with the Halloween theme.
2. Split the Oreos in half and drop the half with the cream stuck to it on the bottom of the each liner, cream side up.
3. In your standing mixer with the flat beater attachment, gently combine eggs, oil, applesauce and vanilla.
4. Add in brown sugar and sugar and let it stir for several minutes.
5. Add in pumpkin puree.
6. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda, pumpkin pie spice, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. 
7. Add dry ingredients to your standing mixer bowl and let it stir until just combined. 
8. Fill cupcake liners almost to the top and bake for about 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out almost clean. (I had a little bit of leftover batter which I promptly ate.)

For the whipped cream frosting: 

1. Using a whisk attachment, beat heavy whipping cream until stiff peaks form. (I never really know what “stiff peaks” are, but the frosting should stay on your whisk when you take it off the mixer. It should look thick and fluffy and airy.)
2. Add powdered sugar (slowly) and vanilla and mix until combined. This will give you more than enough frosting so you can pile it on high!
3. Pipe onto cooled cupcakes with a big star tip and sprinkle cinnamon on top to decorate. 
4. Put one jack-o-lantern peep on top of each cupcake for a cute Halloween topper!

Hello Kitty Cookies - Recipe & Instructions

A few people have asked me how I made the Hello Kitty sugar cookies I posted a photo of a few weeks ago.  Here is the recipe and my instructions on how to make these cute cookies - they are much easier than you’d think!

Sugar Cookie Recipe (adapted from Our Best Bites)

• 1 cup butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 large or extra large egg
• 1.5 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 cups flour
• 1.5 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

1. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy - about 2 minutes. Add egg and vanilla extract and mix to incorporate.
2. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt.
3. Slowly add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and mix until completely combined.
4. Immediately roll dough out between two sheets of parchment paper and then place on a flat surface in the fridge. Chill for about a half hour.
5. Lightly sprinkle flour on your counter top and roll the dough out with a rolling pin. Using your Hello Kitty face shaped cookie cutter, cut out as many faces as you can. I was able to make about 30 cookies.
6. Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes for a nice soft sugar cookie. If you want the cookies to be crispier, bake for 10-12 minutes.

Glace Icing Recipe

• 1 pound powdered sugar
• 6 tablespoons whole milk
• 6 tablespoons light corn syrup
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. With a whisk, combine sugar and milk until smooth with no lumps. Then stir in corn syrup and vanilla extract.

Directions to make Hello Kitty faces

1. Let cookies cool completely before starting to decorate.
2. Separate the icing into three different bowls. Tint one bowl with black food coloring, one with yellow food coloring and one with pink food coloring. (You will need more of the pink than the yellow or black, so you might want to put more icing into the pink bowl.) Swirl with a toothpick to make sure food coloring spreads around evenly.
3. Using tiny paint brushes, follow the outlines from the cookie cutter to paint on Hello Kitty’s face. Use one of the larger brushes to paint on the pink bow, a medium brush to paint on her yellow nose and a very thin brush to paint on her eyes and whiskers.
4. Let the icing harden before putting the cookies in a tupperware container. You can stick them in the fridge to expedite this.

These were so much fun to make and I hope you enjoy making them too!! :)