Baking Adventures: Pumpkin Bread/Cupcakes/Muffins

So, as you can tell by the title, this next baked good is...confusing. The original recipe is for Pumpkin Bread from the Better Homes and Garden's Cookbook. I usually make them as muffins, hence the muffin in the title. But in this case, I added icing, making this a cupcake. These cupcakes were for a staff member at my afterschool program.

I halved the recipe, otherwise I would have ended up with 4 dozen cupcakes, instead of 2. I mixed 1 1/2 cup of granulated sugar with 1 cup of oil.

Next add 2 eggs and beat to combine.

In a separate bowl combine 1 3/4 cup of flour, 1 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp of cinnamon and 1/2 tsp of nutmeg.

Alternate between the flour mixture and 1/2 cup of water into the oil and sugar mixture until fully combined.

Next, add 1 cup of pumpkin puree. This was frozen last year, it's very easy to make, but that's another blog post...

Bake for 25 minutes.

Now for the icing. Take 1 8 oz package of cream cheese at room temperature and beat until "fluffy."

Add 1 tsp of vanilla extract.

Now, comes the part that I guess with. Typically 1 cup of powdered sugar is added gradually, but I don't measure this out. I do it by sight, and I like tasting the tartness of the cream cheese in the icing, so I don't use 1 cup. I add enough to give the cream cheese the appearance of icing.

Next, I decided to add cinnamon.

Once the cupcakes are cooled, it's time to ice and decorate.

I put the icing in a zip top bag with a piping attachment. It's much neater than a regular piping bag, and it makes the finished product look really nice!