My soft, buttery Pumpkin Cupcakes are topped with an irresistible brown sugar cream cheese frosting. They come together without a mixer in under an hour for a fast and fun fall dessert! Recipe includes a how-to video!
Perfect Pumpkin Cupcakes
These soft pumpkin cupcakes will fulfill all of your fall dessert cravings. Are they packed with pumpkin? Check! Infused with cozy spices? Check! Fast and easy (more time for corn mazes and pumpkin patches!)? Check, check, check! Find me a more simple and satisfying fall dessert–I dare you!
This recipe is super quick, with just 20 minutes of prep and another 20 minutes to bake. Thanks to the melted butter, there’s no need to use a mixer and no time spent waiting for butter to soften. Plus, melted butter provides the best, butteriest flavor, so using it here is a no-brainer.
We’ll be topping off our pumpkin cupcakes with a brown sugar version of my classic cream cheese frosting, and it’s simply amazing. It’s a silker and thinner variation that pipes beautifully and pairs so well with the pumpkin flavor. You’ll love it!
What You Need
Here are the key ingredients you’ll need to make my pumpkin cupcakes:
- Canned pumpkin. Make sure you use 100% pumpkin and NOT pumpkin pie filling! Homemade pumpkin puree can be substituted, but I tend to prefer the canned version in this situation and you’re more likely to get consistent results using the canned stuff.
- Butter. Generally I prefer to use a blend of oil and butter when making cakes and cupcakes (like my vanilla cake and apple cake). This combo tends to yield a light, soft, and moist texture. However, when it comes to these pumpkin cupcakes, I found that using just butter yields an incredibly soft, moist, and flavorful cupcake–no oil required. In fact, by using just butter we get an even better flavor and lose nothing by way of moisture (and melting it helps really infuse the cupcakes with buttery flavor, too!). This is largely because the pumpkin puree itself adds so much moisture to the cupcakes.
- Pumpkin spice. This blend of spices adds the perfect flavor to our cupcakes. If you don’t have any on hand, you can make my homemade pumpkin spice!
- Cream cheese. Use the brick-style, full-fat version. I don’t recommend the spreadable kind that comes in a tub (frosting made with that cream cheese tends to be runny and no good for piping).
- Brown sugar. Adding a few tablespoons of brown sugar to the frosting adds a subtle depth of flavor (thanks to the molasses in brown sugar).
SAM’S TIP: Beating in a tablespoon or two of heavy cream will make your frosting even silkier and smoother. Whether or not I add it usually depends on how I want my frosting to look on top of my cupcake when I’m finished; if you leave out the cream it will be stiffer and hold its shape when piped.
Remember, this is just an overview of the ingredients I used and why. For the full recipe please scroll down to the bottom of the post!
How to Make Pumpkin Cupcakes
- Melt your butter and let it cool (we’ll be adding eggs directly to it, butter that’s too hot can cook your eggs, which you don’t want!).
- In a separate bowl, whisk together your dry ingredients.
- Add egg, vanilla, pumpkin puree, and milk to the cooled melted butter.
- Gently fold the wet and dry ingredients together with a spatula (don’t overdo it!), then portion into a lined muffin tin.
- Bake for 20 minutes and allow the cupcakes to cool before frosting.
SAM’S TIP: If you’re not a fan of cream cheese frosting, feel free to frost your pumpkin cupcakes with substitute my vanilla frosting, brown butter frosting (also uses cream cheese but it’s a whole different experience!), or my swiss meringue buttercream instead.
Frequently Asked Questions
You can, but I’d recommend you try my pumpkin cake instead!
I recommend refrigerating your pumpkin cupcakes if not enjoying within 1-2 days or if you’re in a particularly warm environment, but you can do what you feel is safest.
You could make the cupcakes and just skip the frosting, or you can just make my buttery, streusel-topped pumpkin muffins instead!
Today’s frosting would also be great on carrot cake cupcakes, spice cake, or banana cake!
Enjoy!
Let’s bake together! I’ll be walking you through all the steps in my written recipe and video below! If you try this recipe, be sure to tag me on Instagram, and you can also find me on YouTube and Facebook
Pumpkin Cupcakes
Ingredients
Cupcakes
- ¾ cup (165 g) unsalted butter cut into pieces
- 1 ¼ cups (150 g) all-purpose flour
- ½ cup (100 g) granulated sugar
- ¼ cup (50 g) light brown sugar firmly packed
- ¾ teaspoons baking soda
- ¾ teaspoons baking powder
- ¾ teaspoon salt
- 1 Tablespoon pumpkin spice
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 2 large eggs lightly beaten (room temperature preferred)
- 1 ½ teaspoon (7.5 ml) vanilla extract
- 1 cup (225 g) pumpkin puree¹
- 2 Tablespoons (30 ml) milk
Brown Sugar Cream Cheese Frosting
- ½ cup (110 g) unsalted butter softened
- 8 oz (226 g) cream cheese softened
- 4 Tablespoons light brown sugar firmly packed
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ⅛ teaspoon salt
- 3 cups (375 g) powdered sugar
- 1-2 Tablespoons heavy cream optional, this will make your frosting even thinner and silkier.
Recommended Equipment
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F (177C) and line a muffin tin with paper liners. Set aside.
- Place your butter pieces in a large, microwave-safe bowl and microwave until melted. Immediately add pumpkin spice and cinnamon and whisk to combine. Set butter aside to cool.¾ cup (165 g) unsalted butter, 1 Tablespoon pumpkin spice, ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- In a separate large mixing bowl combine flour, sugars, baking powder, baking soda, salt, pumpkin spice, and cinnamon. Whisk until well-combined. Set aside.1 ¼ cups (150 g) all-purpose flour, ½ cup (100 g) granulated sugar, ¼ cup (50 g) light brown sugar, ¾ teaspoons baking soda, ¾ teaspoons baking powder, ¾ teaspoon salt
- Check that your butter isn't warm to the touch and add pumpkin puree and stir well.1 cup (225 g) pumpkin puree¹
- Add eggs and vanilla extract and whisk well to combine. Stir in milk.2 large eggs, 2 Tablespoons (30 ml) milk, 1 ½ teaspoon (7.5 ml) vanilla extract
- Gradually stir your dry ingredients into your wet until completely combined, taking care to not over-mix the batter.
- Evenly divide cupcake batter into prepared muffin tins (filling each about ⅔-¾ full/about 3 Tbsp of batter per liner) and bake on 350 for 18-20 minutes (toothpick inserted in center should come out mostly clean with only few crumbs).
- Allow to cupcakes to cool in the pan for 5-7 minutes before carefully removing to a cooling rack to cool completely before frosting.
Brown Sugar Cream Cheese Frosting
- In the bowl of a stand mixer with a paddle attachment (or in a large bowl using an electric mixer) beat together cream cheese and butter, until well-creamed.½ cup (110 g) unsalted butter, 8 oz (226 g) cream cheese
- Add brown sugar, vanilla extract, and salt and beat on medium-high speed until well-combined (about 15-30 seconds). Pause mixer to scrape down sides of bowl, and then beat again to make sure all ingredients are combined.4 Tablespoons light brown sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, ⅛ teaspoon salt
- Reduce mixer speed to low and gradually, about ½ cup at a time, add powdered sugar until combined. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl again.3 cups (375 g) powdered sugar
- If using heavy cream, add now (1 Tablespoon at a time) and beat on high speed for 30 seconds — until frosting is smooth and silky. Scrape down sides of bowl once more and beat briefly.1-2 Tablespoons heavy cream
- Spread or pipe frosting over cooled cupcakes.
- Enjoy!
Notes
Nutrition
Nutritional information is based on third-party calculations and should be considered an estimate only. Actual nutritional content will vary based upon brands used, measuring methods, cooking method, portion sizes, and more.
This easy recipe was originally published 09/07/2016. Additional information and a new video have been added to help make this post as helpful as possible.
E
Hi, Sam!
I feel like I’m going crazy on this one so please let me know if I’m missing something… but the written instructions and the video aren’t aligning. In the written instructions, step two says to add 1 tbsp of pumpkin spice and 1/2 tsp of cinnamon into the butter. Step three says to add pumpkin spice and cinnamon in the written part but the ingredients list below it doesn’t include it. And in the ingredients list it says to use 1 tbsp (which aligns with step two) but in the video, it says to use 2 tsp and it’s being added to the dry ingredients – not the butter.
Can you please confirm how this should be done? Before I realized this, I had started with step three so added the 1 tbsp of pumpkin spice and 1/2 tsp of cinnamon… haven’t baked them yet, so we’ll see what happens!
Sam Merritt
Oh gosh! I am so sorry for the confusion! I just changed the written recipe yesterday because we just filmed a new video for it. Either way works, but I am in the process of updating this recipe and filmed a new video to align with the new way, (which is the written way) which I prefer. The video just doesn’t quite match yet.
Denise
Can I use almond flour instead of the all purpose flour?
Sam Merritt
Hi Denise! I haven’t experimented with almond flour here, but I would be hesitant to try it. If you do try it, let me know how it goes. 🙂
Mark
Not a big deal, but I think the weight for 3/4 cups butter is off by ~5 grams from 1.5 sticks.
Taryn
Everyone lost their minds for these cupcakes
Sam
I’m so glad everyone enjoyed them so much, Taryn! 🙂