Sweetie, let me introduce you to the most fabulous Gingerbread Cupcake Recipe your taste buds will ever have the pleasure of meeting! These little darlings are bursting with that warm ginger zing, rich molasses, and a symphony of spices that’ll have you getting down on more than one. They are the epitome of soft and moist, with layers of complex spiced goodness, all topped off with a dreamy vanilla and maple buttercream frosting. These holiday cupcakes are the real deal for parties, school bake sales, gifting to your loved ones, or even as a special treat for Santa! Trust me, one bite and you’ll be in holiday cupcake heaven!
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Honey, close those eyes and let’s take a little stroll down memory lane to the heart of the holiday season. Picture those twinkling lights twinkling on trees, adorable snowmen standing guard in front yards, and those festive family feasts that are just everything. But now, let’s switch gears and get all wrapped up in the scents of the season.
Y’all, there’s nothing I adore more than filling my home with the sweet, sweet smells of traditional holiday baking. It’s all about those classic flavors and aromas that just wrap my home up in a cozy, comforting blanket and get my whole family buzzing with that holiday joy.
And let me tell you, my absolute favorite scent? It’s ginger, boos – with its spicy, slightly woody, and zesty personality. That’s exactly why this holiday, I’m bringing you these gingerbread cupcakes. They’re not just cupcakes, y’all – they’re like a little piece of my home, all dressed up in holiday style!
If you love ginger flavors, definitely try my Gingerbread Crinkle Cookies, Gingerbread Cake, and Gingerbread Pancakes! These homemade Little Debbie Christmas Tree Cakes are super fun too!
Why You’ll Love These Gingerbread Cupcakes
- Delightful Flavors! These Gingerbread cupcakes are incredibly moist thanks to molasses and buttermilk and the blend of spices ensures each bite bursts with flavor.
- Nostalgic Treat! We all know and love the traditional gingerbread cookie because of the wonderful flavor and memories associated with each bite. Now you can enjoy it in the form of a cupcake.
- Bring the Essence of the Holiday Season: Gingerbread signifies the holiday season. These gingerbread cupcakes make a festive treat that brings warmth and the aroma of gingerbread spices evokes a cozy, holiday atmosphere.
- Perfect for Parties: As an individual treat, cupcakes are great to serve and share at parties or gatherings during the holidays.
- Balance of Sweet and Spicy: The sugar and molasses along with the spiciness of ginger and other spices create a harmonious flavor profile that’s delightful.
Ingredients to Make This Gingerbread Cupcakes Recipe
Here’s a look at the main ingredients that combine to make the perfect ginger cupcake that is guaranteed to get rave reviews.
- Unsalted butter: Make sure you use softened, room-temperature butter for the cupcake batter and the buttercream icing.
- Sugar: These cupcakes use a blend of light brown sugar and granulated sugar for sweetness. You will also need a confectioner’s sugar for the frosting.
- Molasses: Adds more depth of flavor and also contributes to the moisture of these cupcakes.
- Eggs: It’s also important to let your eggs sit at room temperature before mixing. This ensures that all the ingredients mix more evenly.
- All-purpose flour: For best results sift it before mixing!
- Ground ginger: The peppery flavor of ground ginger is a delicious balance of savory and sweet.
- Cinnamon, allspice, and cloves: Adds the warm, signature aroma and taste of the holidays.
- Buttermilk: Adds a bit of tang and extra fat for a more moist cupcake.
- Pure vanilla extract: It combines with the spices to create a beautifully spiced gingerbread cupcakes batter that melts in your mouth and warms your belly.
- Maple syrup: Just a bit is added to the frosting to give it a more complex flavor.
- Ginger cookies with snowflakes: These are totally optional but are an extra special garnish on these cupcakes that dresses them up into something truly special!
How to Make Gingerbread Cupcakes
Gather all your ingredients together to make the best ginger cupcakes and let’s get baking. Here’s a look at the highlights but all the details are in the recipe card at the end of the post.
Make the Cupcakes
- Add the butter, both sugars and molasses to the bowl of a stand mixer and beat on high speed until light and fluffy for about 5 minutes.
- Add the eggs one at a time and mix until well incorporated.
- Add the flour, ginger, cinnamon, baking soda, salt, allspice, and cloves to the bowl in increments. Mix on low speed until well combined.
- Add in the buttermilk and vanilla and mix again until the batter is smooth.
- Scoop the batter into your cupcake liners filling three-quarters full.
- Bake the cupcakes until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out mostly clean. Allow the cupcakes to cool completely.
Make the Buttercream Frosting
- Add the butter and salt to your stand mixer and beat at medium-low speed.
- Add the confectioners’ sugar in small portions and mix on low until all the sugar is added. Once it’s all in the bowl turn the speed up to medium-high and mix until it’s completely combined.
- Add the heavy cream, maple syrup, and vanilla extract to the bowl.
- Mix until the frosting is nice and fluffy.
Decorating the Cupcakes
- Pipe the buttercream on completely cooled and room-temperature cupcakes.
- Decorate your cupcakes with ginger cookies and serve.
Tips for Making the Best Ginger Cupcakes
- Do not over-bake. For a moist cupcake, you want to bake just until a toothpick comes out clean. Overbaking may result in dry, tough cupcakes.
- Frosting your cupcakes. Be sure the cupcakes are completely cooled. If they are still warm the frosting may melt and slide off when added to the cupcakes.
- Don’t overfill the cupcake liners: These cupcakes don’t have a high peaked dome so you want to fill them up a bit more than other cupcakes. Fill to three-quarters but not any higher to leave a little room for the cupcakes to rise without overflowing.
- Use fresh spices: Spices don’t last forever in your cabinet. Be sure your ginger, cinnamon, and nutmeg are fresh to ensure they provide the best flavor. Expired or stale spices can lead to a less flavorful cupcake.
- Accurate measurements are key to baking success: Use a spoon to measure dry ingredients into the measuring cups and level off with a knife when measuring.
Popular Substitutions & Additions
- No Buttermilk? No problem. You can add one tablespoon of lemon juice or vinegar to a cup of regular milk and let it sit for five minutes.
- Mini Gingerbread Cupcakes. Instead of a regular-sized muffin pan, make mini cupcakes for bite-sized treats! These are perfect for parties and gatherings. Decrease the cooking time by 10-15 minutes and check with a toothpick!
- Add-Ins For Different Flavors: It’s so easy to customize your gingerbread cupcakes with chopped nuts, dried fruits, or chocolate chips for added texture and flavor. Add and mix in right at the end.
- Change the Frosting: Feel free to use a different frosting for your ginger cupcakes. Cream cheese frosting, caramel frosting, or cinnamon-flavored buttercream are all great choices.
- Use Different Toppings: You can also use crushed ginger snaps, crystallized ginger, or a sprinkle of cinnamon to create a variety of textures and looks.
What to Serve with Gingerbread Cupcakes
- Caramel Sauce: Drizzle some homemade caramel sauce over the top of your cupcakes to take these over the top!
- Ice Cream: Instead of cake and ice cream, enjoy some cupcakes and ice cream! Experiment with different flavors such as apple pie ice cream, vanilla ice cream, and corn ice cream.
- Great for Dessert Trays or Bake Sales. Serve them with other winter favorites such as pecan pie bars, peppermint brownies, and caramel apple pound cake.
- Holiday Celebrations. They’re the perfect dessert for your holiday party! Enjoy them with favorites such as the best crab cakes, turkey empanadas, and corn fritters.
How to Store Gingerbread Cupcakes
For best results store your gingerbread cupcakes in an airtight container in the refrigerator.
How long will gingerbread cupcakes last?
These gingerbread cupcakes will last up to 24 hours stored at room temperature and up to four days in the fridge. Since the buttercream frosting contains dairy it’s important to store the cupcakes in the fridge.
Can I freeze this gingerbread cupcakes recipe?
Yep you know it! You can bake the cupcakes ahead of time and freeze them in an airtight container before frosting. When you’re ready to serve them, allow them to thaw on the counter, and then make your frosting and decorate the cupcakes.
You can also freeze fully prepared cupcakes as well. I recommend flash-freezing them on a baking pan and then storing them individually in a bag or in a single layer in a container.
Frequently Asked Questions
The cupcakes do not bake up into a high dome but have rather flat tops. They shouldn’t have sunk though. The most likely cause is that they needed to bake for a bit more time. Make sure to check for doneness with a toothpick rather than only relying on time. Not all ovens are exactly the same so the baking time may vary slightly.
No worries! A freezer bag works great! Simply transfer your frosting to the bag and zip it shut. Then cut off one corner in order to squeeze out the frosting. Be sure you don’t cut the hole too large. You can also simply spread the frosting on top with a spatula or knife.
Gingerbread is generally made with molasses, which adds tenderness but also more depth of flavor, and a blend of spices including ginger, cinnamon, allspice, and cloves. This recipe reflects those traditional flavors. You can easily adjust any of the spices to your own tastes to give any of them more prominence.
These gingerbread cupcakes are brimming with all those warm, gentle spiced flavors and aromas that take you right back to your favorite gingerbread memories. They’re not just cupcakes, sweetie, they’re like little bundles of holiday joy and comfort in every single bite. Elevate your holiday season to a whole new level of fab with these festive ginger cupcakes.
More Holiday Dessert Recipes
- Perfect Shortbread Cookies with Chocolate
- Pineapple Rum Cake
- Fruit Cake
- Cranberry Orange Cake Recipe
- Chocolate Peppermint Cheesecake
- Red Velvet Cheesecake
*Did you make this recipe? Please give it a star rating and leave comments below!* Post a photo of how your version of the recipe came out on Instagram (using #grandbabycakes)!!
Gingerbread Cupcakes
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Ingredients
For the Cupcakes
- 1 cup unsalted butter room temperature
- 1 cup light brown sugar packed
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 cup molasses
- 4 large eggs room temperature
- 3 cups all-purpose flour sifted
- 2 tbsp ground ginger
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp salt
- ½ tsp ground allspice
- ½ tsp ground cloves
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 1 ½ tbsp Pure Vanilla extract
For the Buttercream
- 3 cups unsalted butter room temperature
- ½ tsp salt
- 9 cups confectioner’s sugar
- 3 tbsp heavy cream
- 1 tbsp maple syrup
- 1 tbsp pure vanilla extract
- Ginger cookies with snowflakes
Instructions
For the Cupcakes
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and add liners to muffin pans and set aside.
- In the bowl of your stand mixer, add together butter, both sugars and molasses and beat on high speed until light and fluffy for about 5 minutes.
- Next add in eggs one at a time and mix until well incorporated.
- Slow mixer to lowest speed and carefully add flour, ginger, cinnamon, baking soda, salt, allspice, and cloves in increments and mix until well combined.
- Lastly, mix in buttermilk and vanilla until smooth.
- Scoop batter into liners 3/4s full and bake for 15-17 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out mostly clean. These cupcakes don’t have a high dome, just fyi.
- Remove cupcakes from oven and allow to cool to room temperature before frosting.
For the Buttercream
- In your stand mixer, add butter and salt at medium low speed.
- Next, turn the mixer down to low and slowly add confectioners’ sugar in small portions until all is added, then turn the speed to medium high to combine.
- Add heavy cream, maple syrup, vanilla extract and mix until nice and fluffy.
- Pipe buttercream on room temperature cupcakes, decorate with ginger cookies and serve.
Video
Notes
- Do not over-bake. For a moist cupcake you want to bake just until a toothpick comes out clean. Over-baking may result in dry, tough cupcakes.
- Frosting your cupcakes. Be sure the cupcakes are completely cooled. If they are still warm the frosting may melt and slide off when added to the cupcakes.
- Don’t overfill the cupcake liners: These cupcakes don’t have a high peaked dome so you want to fill them up a bit more than other cupcakes. Fill to three-quarters but not any higher to leave a little room for the cupcakes to rise without overflowing.
- Use fresh spices: Spices don’t last forever in your cabinet. Be sure your ginger, cinnamon, and nutmeg are fresh to ensure they provide the best flavor. Expired or stale spices can lead to a less flavorful cupcake.
- Accurate measurements are key to baking success: Use a spoon to measure dry ingredients into the measuring cups and level off with a knife when measuring.
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These totally caved in the middle for me :/ taste was okay but would not make again. Took my over 30 min just to mix the batter.
Oh no! I am so sorry to hear that!
Following up with a couple notes after doing some research:
For novice bakers like myself: It would be helpful to add into the instructions which attachment to use on the mixer for each step. Experienced bakers already know which attachment to use for each step, but someone like myself who doesn’t bake often does not. I used the whisk attachment to mix the batter and I think that made too many air bubbles in the batter and caused it to fall. For me it would have been helpful for you to say “Using the paddle attachment, mix the batter….”. I see that there are pictures but as a personal chef I don’t have time to read the whole post. I scroll immediately to the recipe and use that.
I did not like the frosting (I did google at that point for which attachment to use so I used the paddle). It just tasted like powdered sugar :/ but maybe that’s just preference. I added a lot more vanilla and that helped some.
Can this be made as a gingerbread cake? Or cakes? What size pans would work best?
Yes absolutely. In fact, you can find the gingerbread cake here: https://grandbaby-cakes.com/gingerbread-cake/
Whipped up a batch of these this afternoon and they do not disappoint! Turned out moist, fluffy and delicious; the best way to cure my sweet tooth, indeed!
Just came to look for this recipe so I can make these cupcakes again. They are amazing and so perfect for the holidays! Thank you.
What an amazing flavor this has!
Such beautiful cupcakes for the holidays! All those flavors sound amazing and I especially love the creamy vanilla and maple buttercream frosting.
I love anything ginger and cupcakes are great to serve at a gathering. Makes everything so much easier. Thanks!
These are incredible thank you! The buttercream is probably the best I’ve ever made, i had to stop myself lol. Phenomenal taste, very excited to take them to work and show them off.