Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

I much prefer pies and cookies over cakes and cupcakes, but when I saw the recipe for pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese frosting in Real Simple, I knew I had to try it.

I love pumpkin and I love cream cheese frosting, so they seemed like the perfect combo. Plus I knew that if I made them on my birthday there likely would be other people (read: Conservative Family) around to try them out since I knew I wouldn't voraciously consume them all.

Plus, they were pretty easy to make. All I had to do was make an 18.5-ounce yellow cake mix, just substituting a 15-ounce can of pumpkin puree and 1/2 teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice for the water in the recipe.


The cream cheese frosting was even easier: two 8-ounce bars of cream cheese at room temperature, plus 2 cups confectioner's sugar. (It's not a super sweet, traditional cream cheese frosting, however. And there's no vanilla. I might add vanilla if I made them again.)

Then all you do once you frost is add candy corns on top.


Just one warning: Don't add candy corns if the cupcakes aren't being consumed relatively soon. By the next day, the candy corns had bled all over the white frosting and it wasn't a pretty sight.

They still tasted good though.