Pumpkin Cupcakes with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting

Last weekend we had a retirement party for my mom.  On the agenda was Cafe Rio Salads and
cupcakes for dessert. YUM!!   I made an assortment of cupcakes.  305 to be exact!  But the favorite by far were my Pumpkin cupcakes.  They were the first to be eaten.  I have even made them again this week because they were JUST.THAT.GOOD.

These cupcakes are so easy to make.  The base of the batter is a yellow cakemix.  Then I added stuff to it to make them more moist.  

I used a small cookie scoop to fill the mini cupcake tins.  This recipe makes about 60 minis.  They are perfect bite size cupcakes.  Although, it is hard to stop at just one!  Everyone had multiple cupcakes.  But they are minis, so the calories don't count, right?

 Bake them at 350 for 15 minutes.  I took them out of the oven and immediately let them cool on parchment paper.  

Wait for them to be completely cool before you start to frost them.  I used a star tip to make a really cute design.  It makes them look professional and like you spent 100 hours on them.  When in reality, it takes 2 seconds to frost each one.

See, don't they look so pretty!  They are seriously so easy to frost.  It took me longer to make the frosting than to frost 60 cupcakes.  

This was my display of cupcakes for my moms retirement party.  It was so pretty that I just wanted to stare at it!  It was a lot of work, but so rewarding to see so many people enjoy them.  I made 6 different flavors.  At the end of the night, we didn't have any left!  

Pumpkin Cupcakes with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting

Cupcakes:

1 box Yellow Cake Mix

3 eggs

1 (15 oz) can Pumpkin

1/2 cup oil

1/3 cup milk

2 tablespoons vanilla

1-2 tablespoons Pumpkin Pie Spice (you could also use cinnamon, ginger, cloves, allspice, nutmeg)

Frosting:

8 oz cream cheese, softened

1 stick butter, softened

3-4 cups powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp Maple flavor

Mix all the cupcake batter ingredients in your mixer until smooth and no lumps.  Line cupcake tin with liners.  Fill about half full with batter.  ( I use a small cookie scoop).  Bake in oven at 350 for 15 minutes.  

For the frosting, mix the butter and cream cheese together until creamy smooth.  Then add the other ingredients.  You may need to add a little milk if the frosting is too stiff.  You want the frosting to be stiff, but not too stiff.  When you put it in a pastry bag to frost the cupcakes, you want the frosting to stay in place.  If you frost a few cupcakes and the frosting is running off the sides, it's not stiff enough and you need to add more sugar.  

*Note

Since I was making so many cupcakes for this party, I made them in advance.  I baked them and immediately took them out of the oven and put in a freezer ziploc back and put in the freezer.  I didn't let them cool down at all.  Then the day of the party, I took them out of the freezer and frosted them.  They are really easy to frost when they are frozen!