Pumpkin + Beer + Cupcakes = Is it Fall yet?!

My absolute favorite season is right around the corner! The season of scarves, crunch leaves under your feet, warm coffee beverages, and pumpkin flavored everything... Yes, I am talking about FALL!

One of my favorite things about this season (besides the aforementioned items) is Dogfish Head Punkin Ale. Well, that was before I got pregnant. Now I just get to enjoy watching my hubby drink it. But that doesn't mean I can't bake with it! ;)

I created a heavenly delicious fall inspired cupcake using Punkin Ale. It may just be my new favorite cupcake.

The Punkin Ale Cupcake with Pumpkin Cream Cheese Frosting! Last year I tried to make these and I put the pumpkin puree in the cupcake, but it completely took over the beer flavor. So I modified my recipe this season and it's a million times better. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did!

 
  Punkin Ale Cupcake (makes 24) 
1 cup Punkin Ale (this can be substituted with any pumpkin flavored beer you can find or like!)
1 cup unsalted butter
1/3 cup brown sugar (for beer/butter mixture)
2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
2/3 cup sour cream
1/4 cup brown sugar (for finished cupcake batter)
ground cinnamon, to taste
ground nutmeg, to taste


1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees and line your cupcake trays. You can make normal or mini-sized cupcakes.
2. Chop the butter into squares, doesn't have to be perfect it just helps it melt faster, and throw them into a sauce pan over medium heat. Add the Punkin Ale and let it come to a simmer (this helps cook off the alcohol, but not the delicious beer flavor).
3. As the butter and beer are simmering, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt into a large mixing bowl.
4. After the butter and Beer have simmered, remove from heat and add the brown sugar. Let this cool for a minute.
5. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and sour cream together with an electric mixer until smooth. Combine this mixture with the cooled butter and beer concoction.
6. Combine the butter/beer/brown sugar goodness into the bowl of dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt) you have set aside. Gently stir until all is combined.
7. To bring out the flavors in the beer, I added a touch of ground cinnamon and ground nutmeg to the batter.
8. Finally, I wanted my cupcakes a little sweeter, so I added another 1/4 cup brown sugar to the batter. This is optional and depends on how sweet you want them.
9. Fill your cupcake trays, each cup should be 3/4 of the way full.
10. Bake the cupcakes for 15 minutes.
11. Allow the cupcakes to cool before frosting them!


Pumpkin Cream Cheese Frosting
1 8oz package cream cheese (softened)
1/4 cup pumpkin puree
1/4 cup unsalted butter (softened)
1 tablespoon orange juice
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 cups confectioners sugar



1. In a mixer, beat the cream cheese, pumpkin puree, butter, orange juice, and vanilla extract together.
2. Add in the confectioners sugar one cup at a time.
3. Once everything is mixed together and thickened it is ready to go on top of your cupcakes!
4. I added a sprinkle of cinnamon on top of the cupcakes once they were frosted. Totally optional.

Cinnamon Roll Cupcakes! {Breakfast for Dessert!}

I have only tried to make homemade cinnamon rolls once in my life because it is a ridiculously long (and messy) process. Plus, me and dough reaaaallllyyy don't get along too well. So, I decided to turn this breakfast favorite into a delicious cupcake. :)

Cinnamon Cupcake:

2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1 stick of unsalted butter, room temp
1 3/4 cups sugar
2 eggs, room temp
2 1/4 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups whole milk, room temp
1 tsp cinnamon

Brown Sugar Filling:
1/4 cup dark brown sugar
3 tbsp unsalted butter, cold
sprinkle of cinnamon

1. Preheat the oven to 350°. Line 2 cupcake pans with paper liners.
2. Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl.
3. Place the unsalted butter in the bowl of a stand mixer or hand-held electric mixer. Add the sugar; beat on medium speed until well incorporated.
4. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing slowly after each addition.
5. Combine the vanilla extract, cinnamon and milk in a large liquid measuring cup.
6. Reduce the speed to low. Add a little of the flour mixture to the butter mixture, then gradually add some of the milk mixture, beating until well incorporated. Continuing alternating the addition of the flour and milk until all the ingredients are included. (Always start and end with the dry ingredients!)
7. For the filling, just mash all the ingredients together until well incorporated. The butter should be cold enough to have the sugar clump and then stick together.
8. Scoop batter into baking cups and then stick a small spoonful of the filling in the middle. (Now, in retrospect, I would probably put a bigger dollop in the middle, or try to swirl it around. Mine were just small in the middle, which saved the best bite for the center. But I guess that makes it the same as a real cinnamon roll, so it's personal preference really.)
9. Bake for 15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out clean. Transfer the pan to a wire rack to cool completely.

Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting:
16 ounces cream cheese, room temp
2 sticks unsalted butter, room temp
3-4 cups confectioner's sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
cinnamon

1. Beat the cream cheese and butter together until nice and whipped.
2. Slowly beat in the confectioner's sugar one cup at a time until sweetened to your liking.
3. Beat the vanilla extract in and then add in some cinnamon. I just kept adding it until it tasted good to me, so have fun with it, but remember start with less because you can always add more. :)

Once the cupcakes are cooled, pipe on your frosting and sprinkle a little cinnamon on top for decoration.

Chocolate + Jalapeno + Lime = Yum

Last weekend, I was suppose to make a cupcake with jalapenos in them. However, I got stuck and frustrated making the jalapeno jelly that I was going to use as the filling so I gave up. I did follow through this weekend though!
I took the idea of jalapeno and decided to make a jelly to put inside a cupcake. For the cupcake flavor, I thought about this one time that I had a chili flavored chocolate and it was delicious, so I chose a chocolate cupcake to hold my jalapeno jelly. The frosting was the hard part for me to figure out. I was trying to stick to a theme that would taste good with jalapeno without turning it into a dinner muffin not a dessert cupcake. I went with a Cream Cheese Frosting with a little lime flavor. This sounds like a strange mixture of flavors, but it surprising turned out amazing!
Okay, so let's start with the hard part: the jalapeno jelly! If you have never made jelly before, let me tell you, it is quite the process. But now that I have done it once, I want to make jelly all the time!
I found this recipe via Google, but I couldn't get it right on the first try so I had to "re-jelly" the jelly. I think the problem was that I chose to use powder pectin and not liquid pectin, so use the liquid! It's a little pricier, but well worth it!
Jalapeno Jelly:
(Makes 6 Jelly Jars)
1 cup Red Bell Pepper chopped
1/2 cup Jalapeno chopped
5 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups Apple Cider Vinegar
1 (6 oz) Liquid Pectin
Crushed Red Peppers (optional)

Remove stems, veins and most of the seeds of the bell and jalapeno peppers. Mince peppers in a food processor. 
In a 5-quart pot over high heat, combine bell peppers, jalapenos, sugar and vinegar. Bring to a rolling boil; boil for 3 minutes. (For extra heat add a few dashes of crushed red peppers.)
Stirring constantly, add the pectin and let mixture cool for 2 minutes. Now stir for 1 minute. 
Pour into hot, sterilized jars and top with sterilized lids. Secure lids with bands and allow jars to cool slowly, creating a vacuum seal. (Sterilized jars are fresh and hot from the dishwasher or a hot pot of water.) 

Next, I just used a basic chocolate cupcake recipe.
Chocolate Cupcakes:
(Makes 20 cupcakes)
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, room temp
2 large eggs, room temp
1-1/4 cups sugar
1 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoons vanilla


Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Beat butter until softened. Add sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until well combined. Measure the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder into a small sized bowl and whisk to combine. Measure out the milk and vanilla and stir to combine
Add about a third of the dry ingredients to the butter/sugar and beat to combine. Add about a half of the milk/vanilla and beat to combine. Continue adding, alternating between dry and wet and finishing with the dry.
Scoop batter into cupcake cups about 2/3’s full. Turn oven down to 350 degrees and bake cupcakes for about 15-18 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.

And finally, the yummy Limey Cream Cheese Frosting:
Frosting:
1 stick of butter (room temp)
1 8oz package of cream cheese (room temp)
3-4 cups of confectioner's sugar
1 lime

Put the butter and cream cheese in a bowl and zest some of the lime into the bowl. Cut the lime in half and squeeze the lime juice into the bowl. Whip up the ingredients until mixed well. Then start adding a the confectioner's sugar one cup at a time and continue blending until all has been combined. Then, naturally, taste to make sure you have the flavor of lime and cream cheese. Nom.
Now that you have all the ingredients made, it is time to put together this cupcake. If you have ever watched any of the cupcake shows that are on, you may have caught them with a contraption that helps them fill the cupcakes with a filling. Well, I don't have that so I had to improvise. I just used a funnel to make a hole in the center of the cupcakes and then just kind of used a knife to put the jelly in the cupcakes. It wasn't perfect, but it worked. Then I used a large ziplock bag and filled it with the frosting, cut off the tip, and then frosted the cupcakes.
As strange as this combination sounds, they actually turned out amazing. Now, if only I could figure out a name for them... Haha.

Perfect Breakfast Bites - Mini Cream Cheese Filled Puffins

Okay, so this recipe isn't necessarily a cupcake, but it's too delicious to not share. I had an idea to make Cream Cheese filled Pancake balls, something I have been wanting to do ever since I have seen this contraption from William Sonoma. I do not own said contraption, but I figured there had to be another way to do it... and there was!
I found this tasty recipe for Mini Maple Pancake Muffins and used that as my foundation for the "puffins". Then I used a simple Cream Cheese Frosting recipe for the filling.

Puffins:
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons sugar
2/3 cup buttermilk
1 egg
2 tablespoons pure maple syrup
2 tablespoons melted butter
ground cinnamon to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and sugar in a medium bowl. Sift together with a wire whisk. In another bowl, stir buttermilk, egg, maple syrup and melted butter until just combined. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and stir with a spoon until combined. Sprinkle in some cinnamon, as much or little as you like.

Cream Cheese Filling:
4 ounces unsalted butter, softened
4 ounces cream cheese, softened
2 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

In a large bowl, beat together the butter and cream cheese with an electric mixer. With the mixer on low speed, add the powdered sugar a cup at a time until smooth and creamy. Beat in the vanilla extract.

Now comes the fun part! First, make sure that you have your mini cupcake pan greased up. Then I add a little layer of Puffin batter to the bottom of each cup, just to cover the bottom. After that, I put in a scoop of the cream cheese filling. I usually add about 1/2 a tablespoon in each cup. Finally, I cover the filling with the remaining Puffin batter. My cups are normally pretty level and they turn out fine. Now, pop those bad boys into the oven for about 8-10 minutes.
Makes 24 mini puffins.

 

Once they are done, dish them up and serve them with some syrup like you normally would with pancakes. I even served mine with some sliced strawberries, but any other fruit would be fine too!