I’m sorry for being gone for as long as I have, but I had a bad head cold and being a Type 1 Diabetic, there’s few medicines I can take that won’t interfere with my blood sugars. So I’ve been laying around in an exhausted, snotty, coughing heap. I also didn’t think it was a good idea being around food while I was sick, but now I’m back and ready to go! Just in time for Thanksgiving, I give you brown sugar cupcakes, filled with pumpkin pastry cream, topped with maple buttercream, then decorated with a little bit of red and gold sugar. Now, this idea was from my mom while we were talking about what kind of fall desserts to make, so I just took her idea and did what I do best: baked the idea into something delicious, but the topping was my little addition to it, since I have a nice sized sprinkle collection that just keeps growing. These are also amazingly delicious cupcakes because everything compliments each other so well and the whole thing just screams fall. Onto the cupcakes!

Here are the recipes that I used for this post if you want to try them for yourself:

• Cupcakes: Brown Sugar Cupcakes
• Filling: Pumpkin Pastry Cream
• My go-to buttercream recipe but I substituted maple extract for the vanilla. You can find it on my recipes page.

Ingredients (for the cupcakes):

Makes 24 regular sized cupcakes

• 2 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened to room temperature
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 3 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 2/3 cup milk

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F and line 2 cupcake pans with cupcake liners. Set aside for now. 

Now in a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Whisk to combine then set aside for now.

In the bowl of your trusty stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment or with a hand mixer (this method might take a little longer), beat the butter for 30 seconds on medium speed then add in the white and brown sugars and beat for an additional 2 minutes until light and fluffy.

Once yours looks like the picture above, it’s time to start adding the eggs one at a time and beating well between each addition. I like to crack my eggs into a separate bowl so that if you get any little pieces of shell, it’s easier to pull them out than if the egg was cracked straight into the mixer bowl with the butter and sugar. And yes, I am speaking from experience.

Next, on low-speed alternate, the dry ingredients with the milk until everything is combined, beginning and ending with the flour mixture, so that all of it gets evenly incorporated and not stuck to the bottom of the bowl. Add the flour mixture 1/3 at a time alternating with the milk, beating well and scraping down the bowl between each addition.

Continue adding the flour mixture and milk until everything is evenly mixed and well combined, like in the picture below.

Before you start scooping the batter into the muffin cups, be sure that you take your spatula and scrape down the sides and along the bottom of the bowl to make sure that everything is evenly mixed, not stuck to the bottom of the bowl.

Now scoop the batter evenly into the cupcake pans until each of them is 2/3 full. I use a cookie scoop, but I still have a few cupcakes that are smaller than the others. Then bake 18-22 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Be sure to rotate the pans halfway through so that all your cupcakes bake evenly.

Let these cool for 5-10 minutes in the pans. Then take them out of the pans and transfer them on a cooling rack to cool completely.

While the cupcakes are cooling its time to make the pumpkin pastry cream! This recipe is delicious by itself, but even more amazing paired with the cupcakes.

Ingredients (for the pastry cream):

Makes 2 cups

• 1 cup milk
• 3 egg yolks
• 1/4 cup pumpkin puree
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/8 cup flour
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp nutmeg (while this spice smells amazing, it’s very overpowering so don’t use too much)
• 1/8 tsp ground cloves (see above note)
• 2 tbsp cornstarch
• 1 tsp vanilla

In a small saucepan over low heat, scald the milk. Scalding is when you bring the milk to just under a boil. When you start to see lots of little bubbles forming around the edges then you’ll know that the milk is ready.

While the milk is heating up, whisk together the egg yolks, pumpkin, sugar,  flour, spices, and cornstarch until smooth. See the picture below.

Once the milk is ready and everything else is mixed together, add half of the hot milk slowly whisking continuously. If you add the milk too quickly, you’ll scramble the eggs. And that would be disgusting!

Once that’s all mixed (see picture above) add the milk and pumpkin mixture back into the rest of the milk on the stove over low heat whisking the whole time for another 1-2 minutes or until the mixture thickens up. Remove the pot from the heat and stir in the vanilla, at this point a spatula works best.

Once the cream looks like this (picture above) transfer it to a bowl and press a piece of plastic wrap over the top to prevent a skin from forming while the cream cools and sets up. (Picture below)

Let this sit in the fridge for an hour or overnight to cool and completely set. While the pastry cream sets, it’s time to core the cupcakes so that they can be filled. I just used a knife to carve a circle only going about halfway into the cupcake, then pulled the center out.

Now onto the buttercream!  I just used my go-to buttercream recipe, but instead of the vanilla, I used maple extract. That tastes amazing and buttercream is such a versatile frosting, you can change out the vanilla with whatever flavors best suits your recipe.

Once all of that is done, get two piping bags or ziplock bags and drop either a 1M or 2D tip (both tips make an amazing cupcake swirl) into the bottom of one and make a little mark just above the opening of the piping tip. Then move the tip up the bag and cut the bag where the mark is.

Fill the one without the piping tip in it with the pumpkin pastry cream and cut the end off. Fill the other bag fitted with the piping tip with the buttercream.  See the pictures below.

 

Take your cored cupcakes and one at a time insert the bag of filling into the holes that were made. With even pressure, start to pull the bag upward as you fill the cupcakes with the pastry cream. Start to ease up on the pressure as you get closer to the top, then when you do reach the top release all pressure and completely pull the bag away. Continue this process until all cupcakes have been filled. Refrigerate any unused pastry cream covered with a piece of plastic wrap to prevent a skin from forming. Keep the cream in the fridge for anywhere from 5-7 days.

Once all the cupcakes have been filled it’s time to frost them. I chose to do a classic cupcake swirl to top mine, you can too. It’s not as hard as you would think, like a lot of things in baking it’s all in the technique. Start in the center of the cupcake and while applying even pressure, go in a circle around the edge of the cupcake then coming up on top of the first circle continue that motion easing up on the bag until you reach the top where you can then bring the frosting to a point releasing the pressure as you pull the bag up and away from the cupcake.

Below is a diagram of how to make a cupcake swirl, if you’re like me and prefer pictures and an explanation over just an explanation.

 Once all your cupcakes are filled and frosted, you can leave them as is, but I decided to add a little bit of fall color to mine since they needed a little pizazz. As you can see, I need a little more practice piping my swirls. I can’t seem to get them to come out all the same! But I think they look pretty good in spite of that.

Nice looking? Yes. Very Monotone? Yes.  So for a little bit of fall color, I combined some red and gold sugar in a bowl. Then with the cupcakes still on the racks, set over some silicone mats to catch all the extra, I liberally sprinkled the sugar over the cupcakes gently dumping off the excess.

These were delicious and I’ll definitely be making these again.  The only complaints were that I needed a touch more pastry cream and a hair less buttercream. A large swirl makes the cupcake a little too sweet!

If you make this or any of the recipes on my blog, leave a picture or a little bit about how it went in the comments so we can all see/talk about your creations.

Until next time, 

Peace, Love, and Sugar,

Brooke