Gingerbread Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Icing.

MMmmm   I love gingerbread, hubby loves gingerbread and we both agree these are A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! The Cinnamon Cream Cheese icing on top is perfection...Warning, long post because of all the yummy pictures!

​

I was heading to a meeting and wanted to take something sweet and Christmasy and what's a perfect Christmas flavour, why gingerbread of course!
Now comes google, there has to be some Gingerbread Cupcake recipes out there, and there were...lots. So I read through about 15 of them, read the reviews, some flat, some too dense, some not good at all and then there was Martha Stewart's recipe. I read it, reread it and it had a weird technique about adding baking soda to boiling water, say what? I had never heard of that before but what the heck, I'll give it a try.
The RESULTS are scrumptious, perfect, followed the recipe to a 'T', didn't change a single thing. Oh ok... I did...  her recipe calls for jumbo muffin pans, I used regular pans and my own frosting but the actual recipe is exact!

When they were all bakes and iced they were so darn cute, I couldn't stop taking pictures  :)

I lined 22 muffin tins with cupcake liners, these ones were super cute.

I sifted together all the dry ingredients - all except for the baking soda which I added to 1 cu of boiling water as per Martha Stewart.

I creamed in the butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy

Added in the molasses.....

Then added in the baking soda+water mixture

Then slowly added the dry ingredients, do it a little at a time to prevent clouds of flour dust filling your kitchen.

Below is my test cupcake, to see how well they rise - perfect.

After the cupcakes cooled, I frosted them with the Cinnamon Cream Cheese icing.

I crushed 2 gingersnap cookies in a baggie with a rolling pin and sprinkled the crumbs on top of the cupcakes.

Then for added cutiness, I put one of these little Gingerbread guys on each cupcake.

Ok, Ok............. back to business........Gingerbread Cupcake Recipe.
So as I mentioned, I followed Martha Stewarts recipe and here it is.

Gingerbread Cupcakes
INGREDIENTS

• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 2/3 cup packed dark-brown sugar
• 1 cup unsulphered molasses
• 2 large eggs, room temperature, lightly beaten

DIRECTIONS

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Line 10 jumbo muffin tins withpaper baking cups, and set aside. In a small saucepan, bring 1 cup water to a boil. In a bowl, combine boiling water andbaking soda; set aside. In a large bowl, sift together flour, ground spices, salt, and baking powder; set aside.
2. In an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter until light. Beat in the brown sugar until fluffy, 1 to 2 minutes. Beat in the molasses, baking-soda mixture, and flour mixture. Beat in the eggs.
3. Fill the cupcake papers three-quarters full, making sure that the batter is divided evenly. Bake cupcakes until a toothpick inserted in the center of them comes out clean, about 30 minutes. Let cupcakes cool a few minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before decorating.

*** What I changed was the cupcake size, I used a regualr size muffin pan and the mix filled 22 cupcake liners and baked for 18-23 minutes until a toothpick came out clean***

Now the Cinnamon Cream Cheese icing, well it's so devine that I could just eat it by the spoonful or spread it on toast, yup..it's that yummy!

Cinnamon Cream Cheese icing
1/2 cup  butter, at room temperature
8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
4 cups powdered sugar
1½ teaspoons ground cinnamon

Beat butter on high until fluffy, add cream cheese and continue to beat until light and airy, about 2 minutes, Slowly add sugar until all in incorporated, add vanilla and cinnamon until mixed in.

Fore more ymmu cupcake recipes, click on the photos below.