pumpkin spice mini cupcakes with brown butter cream cheese frosting

Okay, wow. I just checked the date on these pictures, and turns out I made these about four years ago, but never had a chance to blog about them. Whoops!

Anyhow, sooooo I made these little mini pumpkin cupcakes four years ago! I had leftover pumpkin puree from something or other (I can't remember at this point!), and so I decided to turn that into mini cupcakes. Just for fun. So for the batter I used Martha Stewart's trusty pumpkin cupcake recipe from her "Cupcakes" book (also used for these Halloween Jack-o-lantern cupcakes, as well as this pumpkin layer cake with piped roses).

For the frosting, I took my basic cream cheese frosting (recipe in my book, The Hello Kitty Baking Book), but instead of regular butter, I browned the butter by melting it in a pan over medium heat, waited for it to brown, and then chilled it until it because solid again. Then I let it come to room temperature before incorporating it in my frosting. (Yes, sounds like a lot of additional work, but SO worth it for that brown butter flavor!!!)

To get the cute little dollop-shaped frosting on top, I used a pastry bag fitted with just a coupler (or you could also just use a large round tip). Holding the bag upright above the center of the cupcake, squeeze your frosting out slowly, and use a pumping motion to keep the frosting moving outwards. Once the frosting has spread almost to the diameter of your cupcake, stop squeezing the piping bag and slowly lift the pastry bag up and away from your cupcake, to give you that cute little point on the top.

And there you have it! Super simple yet tasty. And perfect for Halloween, or even Thanksgiving! Enjoy!