Pumpkin Cupcakes

[firsttiger]

Pumpkin Cupcakes, originally uploaded by deueltl.

A few years ago, a thread on LJ led me on the quest for a good pumpkin cake recipe. After a couple of days of poking around, I settled on this one. The original recipe calls for pumpkin cream cheese frosting. I neglected to pick up the soy cream cheese needed, so after a little head scratching, I ended up modifying a simple buttercream recipe to be cinnamon instead of vanilla. The resulting cake was a hit and fast became a family fall favorite. More often than not, I end up making cupcakes with it this time of year. It's a good recipe. How good? Good enough to cause me to break my rather strict self-imposed sugar avoidance to eat a broken mini-cupcake (no frosting). 

Pumpkin Cake
(Adapted from Country Living)

Ingredients
3/4 cup unsalted margarine (1 1/2 sticks), softened
1 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 (-1 1/2 tsp) cup Soymilk
1 1/2 tsps white vinegar or lemon juice
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon fresh-ground nutmeg

Before putting the ingredients together, mix your soymilk and either vinegar or lemon juice together and let sit for 5-10 minutes. This is acting as a buttermilk substitute. 

Directions
1. Prepare cake pans: Preheat oven to 350° F. Lightly coat three 8-inch cake pans with softened butter. Cut three 8-inch circles out of parchment paper and fit them into the bottom of the cake pans. Lightly coat the paper circles with butter and set aside.
2. Make the batter: Cream butter until smooth in a large bowl with an electric mixer set on medium speed. Add the sugars and mix until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition, until the mixture is smooth and light. Set aside. Combine the pumpkin puree, soymilk and vanilla in a medium bowl and set aside. Combine the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, baking soda and nutmeg in a large bowl and set aside. In thirds, alternately add the flour mixture and buttermilk mixture to the butter mixture, blending well after each addition until smooth.
3. Bake the cake: Pour batter into the prepared pans and bake until a toothpick inserted into the middle of each cake comes out clean -- 35 to 40 minutes. Cool the cakes in the pan on wire racks for 30 minutes. Remove cakes from pans and return to the wire racks until completely cool.
4. Frost cake

Cinnamon Frosting

1 lb confectioners' sugar
1 stick unsalted margarine
1/4 cup soy milk 
Approx 1TB cinnamon

Combine ingredients and then whip the heck out of it. That, quite simply is the big secret of buttercream frosting. 

 

Comments

[pieces2puzzle.livejournal.com]

Nom nom nom nom!

You have activated my sweet tooth! :)

[firsttiger.livejournal.com]

I'll edit the post and add the recipe.:)