Christmas Gingerbread Cupcakes

Several weeks ago it was a yucky weather day outside and I was in the mood to bake.  I know, big surprise.  So I thought of making gingerbread cupcakes and wanted to try out a recipe from Martha Stewart for Brown Sugar Cream Cheese frosting.  I  figured I’d use that to frost the gingerbread cupcakes with.  Then I needed a cupcake recipe.  I wanted one that I could make using a cake mix.  I found one in the Hello Cupcake Cookbook.

The recipe started of with a yellow cake mix and then you added spices and molasses along with the other ingredients to make it like gingerbread. 

I have to say, those cupcakes were a flop.  Not tasty at all.  It just tasted like a strange yellow cake.  However, the brown sugar cream cheese frosting that I topped them with was good.  Only thing I found with that frosting recipe is you need to use fresh brown sugar.  My brown sugar was fairly fresh but I still ended up with a few clumps of brown sugar in the frosting.  One of them happen to clog my decorating tip when I was piping on the icing.

After this experience I still wanted to find a gingerbread cake mix cupcake.  I thought about altering the Hello Cupcake version and use a spice cake mix.  Then I checked out “101 Gourmet Cupcakes in 10 minutes” by my friend Wendy Paul from the library.  By the way, I love her book and it would make a great Christmas gift.  Anyway, she had a gingerbread cupcake recipe in her book using a spice cake mix. 

The results with her recipe were so much better and is what I have shared with you all below.  This time I use good old regular cream cheese frosting to top them with.  However, the brown sugar frosting was also tasty. So included that recipe too with these cupcakes. Now with both versions, I put a cute gingerbread man cookie on top, from a bag of store bought cookies.  But I also think they would be yummy with a little fresh orange zest on top if you want a more sophisticated look for your cupcake.

Gingerbread Cupcakes

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• Author: Laura

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Ingredients

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• 1 box spice cake mix
• 3 eggs
• 1/3 cup molasses
• 1/3 cup oil
• 1/2 cup milk

Brown Sugar Cream Cheese Frosting

• 1/2 cup butter
• 8 ounces cream cheese, softened
• 1 cup packed light brown sugar (make sure it is fresh)

Cream Cheese Frosting

• 1 (8 oz) package cream cheese at room temperature
• 1/4 C butter (1/2 stick) at room temperature
• 4 C sifted powdered sugar (You can decrease this amount if you don’t care about it being as stiff for piping)
• 1 tsp vanilla

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Instructions

1. Mix together cake mix, eggs, molasses, oil and milk.
2. Pour into paper liners and fill 3/4 full.  (I did 18 cupcakes)
3. Bake at 350 degrees for 15-18 minutes until the cake springs back when lightly touched.
4. Cool completely before frosting
5. For the brown sugar cream cheese frosting – With a mixer, blend cream cheese and butter until smooth and creamy.  Mix in brown sugar until creamy.
6. For the cream cheese frosting – Mix cream cheese and butter until smooth and creamy. Mix in vanilla. Mix in powdered sugar, one cup at a time.

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Both of these photos are from when this post was originally posted in December 2009.