I love this pumpkin cupcakes recipe. They’re soft, lighter than today’s version, and cakey—everything you expect from a handheld cake! Today’s cupcakes are little heartier, almost like a muffin. Not a bad thing!
Tell Me About These Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes with Marshmallow Frosting
Texture: These are moist and soft pumpkin cupcakes with a slightly denser texture. The marshmallow frosting is fluffy, creamy, and wonderfully smooth. Flavor: What my team and I love most about these pumpkin cupcakes is that they aren’t overly sweet. Oftentimes we find that pumpkin desserts are stripped from their deep, complex pumpkin flavor because they are weighed down with too much sugar. Not here because you get the sweetness you need in the marshmallow frosting. Ease: These pumpkin cupcakes with marshmallow frosting sound complex but the recipe is pretty straightforward using common baking ingredients. Decorate however you’d like with a knife or piping tip. In the pictured cupcakes, I used my trusty Wilton #12 round tip.
*If you ever need guidance on decorating with piping tips, here’s my How to Use Piping Tips video.
Choosing the Right Ingredients
Brown Sugar: Only 2/3 cup of brown sugar sweetens this batch of cupcakes (brown sugar for a touch of molasses flavor, of course), so the pumpkin and robust spices can really stand out. Typical cupcake recipes with the same yield call for 1 or more cups of sugar. Pumpkin Pie Spice: You can purchase pumpkin pie spice in the baking aisle or use this homemade pumpkin pie spice blend. If you have individual spices, use ground ginger, ground cinnamon, ground nutmeg, ground cloves, and ground allspice. See recipe Note for details. Heavy Cream: I recommend heavy cream over milk or half-and-half in the marshmallow frosting to obtain the creamiest texture and richest taste.
By the way, if you love marshmallow flavor, you could easily swap out this frosting with homemade marshmallow meringue frosting. It’s like marshmallow creme, but can be piped onto cakes and cupcakes. And if you ever need extra advice or guidance when it comes to cupcake baking, here’s my Tips for Baking the Best Cupcakes page. You can also join my Baking Made Easy email course to receive my best baking tips! It’s completely free and includes my top recipes and plenty of helpful baking lessons. You could even swap the marshmallow frosting for the same cinnamon swirl frosting used on these snickerdoodle cupcakes. Salted caramel frosting would be excellent as well. Garnish with a pumpkin candy to make a festive treat:
More Favorite Pumpkin Recipes
Pumpkin Cookies Pumpkin Bars No Bake Pumpkin Cheesecake Pumpkin Donuts Brown Butter Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies Pumpkin Pie
