Pumpkin Cupcakes with Candy Corn Buttercream
These perfectly moist, tender and spiced Pumpkin Cupcakes with a Halloween festive Candy Cane buttercream will definitely get you in the fall baking mood!
Servings: 18 cupcakes
Calories: 298kcal
Ingredients
For the Cupcakes:
- 2 large eggs room temperature
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- ¼ cup light brown sugar packed
- ½ cup vegetable oil
- ¼ cup hot water
- 1 cup pumpkin puree
- 1 cup sifted all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon McCormick ground cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon McCormick ground nutmeg
- ½ teaspoon salt
For the Buttercream:
- 1 cup unsalted butter room temperature
- Pinch salt
- 3 cups confectioners’ sugar
- 2 tablespoons heavy cream
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- McCormick Color From Nature Assorted food color
Instructions
For the Cupcakes:
- Begin by preheating your oven to 350 degrees and adding 16-18 cupcake liners to two 12 muffin pans.
- In the mixer bowl, add eggs and both granulated and brown sugar and beat for 3 minutes on high speed.
- Next pour in oil, hot water, and pumpkin and mix until incorporated. Scrape sides of bowl as needed.
- Turn your mixer to the slowest speed and carefully add flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt. Mix until just combined.
- Using an ice cream scooper, scoop cake batter into each cupcake liner filling only 2/3s of the way.
- Bake for 16-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out barely clean.
- Allow the cupcakes to cool in the pans for 10 minutes then remove the cupcakes from the pans and place them on a cooling rack to cool completely.
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 powdered sugar in small portions until all is added then turn the speed to medium high to combine.
- Add heavy cream and vanilla extract and mix until nice and fluffy.
- Evenly separate the buttercream into three different bowls leaving one bowl plain.
- Color one bowl using the sunflower color and set aside.
- Color another bowl pumpkin by using both the berry and sunflower colors.
- To pipe cupcakes, start by piping one wide ring on top of cupcakes using round tip with the sunflower color then follow up on top of ring with pumpkin color with round tip and finish piping one dollop of plain color with star tip on top and serve.
Notes
Use a scoop to fill your cupcake liners. There’s nothing worse than pulling your cupcakes out of the oven just to find out they’re either raw in the center or overcooked. By using a scoop you ensure that every liner is being filled with an equal amount of batter. Same amount of batter means uniform baking.
Preheat your oven before placing your cupcakes inside.
Adjust the racks to the center of the oven. Doing this ensures good airflow and helps to even out heat distribution which prevent overcooking on any one side of the cupcakes.
Don’t leave the cupcakes in their pans for too long. The heat from the pan will cause the cupcakes to continue to cook and eventually overcook. That means dry cupcakes that not even a glass of milk will help.
Hot spots in your oven? If your oven cooks unevenly from front to back, rotate the cupcakes halfway through baking.
Baking more than one pan of cupcakes? Be sure to place them side by side on the rack. Give each pan as much space as you can while still keeping each one as close to the center of the oven as possible.
Nutrition
Calories: 298kcal | Carbohydrates: 35g | Protein: 1g | Fat: 17g | Saturated Fat: 12g | Cholesterol: 50mg | Sodium: 107mg | Potassium: 72mg | Sugar: 28g | Vitamin A: 2490IU | Vitamin C: 0.6mg | Calcium: 25mg | Iron: 0.7mg