stoney321 | Recipes nsuch (Reply)

First, those pumpkin spice cupcakes with cinnamon cream cheese frosting:

I took this from Mah-tha, but embellished it to make it my own. (Also, I doubled this - the original that you see here makes 18. I'm feeding a crowd, so.)

Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon coarse salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1 cup packed light-brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 can (15 ounces) pumpkin puree

Things I added: 1/2 C (for the doubled recipe, 1/4 if making as is) of my homemade pumpkin butter. Makes them super moist and super-tastastic. If you don't have that on hand, add applesauce or apple butter. It just makes cakes better, and I sometimes forget that. (Like when I made you a cake, Lee! Sorry!)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line cupcake pans with paper liners; set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and allspice; set aside.
In a large bowl, whisk together, brown sugar, granulated sugar, butter, and eggs. Add dry ingredients, and whisk until smooth. Whisk in pumpkin puree.
Divide batter evenly among liners, filling each about halfway. Bake until tops spring back when touched, and a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes, rotating pans once if needed. Transfer to a wire rack; let cool completely.

Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting
For the doubled recipe, use 2 packages of Neufchatel cream cheese (less fat, all the taste) If doing the As Is version, use one package.
Powdered sugar (I didn't measure)
Cinnamon, either pre-ground, or you can be all fancy and grind it yourself. I opted for the first because I'm lazy.

Let cream cheese come to room temperature, add 1/2 C powdered sugar to the bowl and mix. (just need a spoon, really, don't go dirtying up a mixer for this.) Continue to add sugar until the cheese has a consistency of frosting. Add several dashes of ground cinnamon. You want it to be brown and speckled, but you don't want it to taste completely like the cinnamon. Bonus: you get to taste it several times. \o/

Caramel Topping
Oh, you read that right. Get a package of wrapped chewy caramels. Open about 20 of them, put in a microwave proof bowl and run it for about 20 seconds. You don't want to melt them, just soften them. (Conversely, you could work them in your hands until they're pliable.)

Roll out on a piece of parchment paper (or marble, or whatever) and use little canape cutters to make little stars, or what have you. Put one on the top of each frosted cupcake.

OM NOM NOM.

We're having carrot soup and homemade bread today to prepare our bellehs for tomorrow's feastings. Sally dog knows she's going to be getting a bone tomorrow, and she's all a'quiver with excitement.

I have so much cleaning to do today, plus sewing, plus napping, and avoiding the first two things. I think that fourth item is going to keep me the busiest. I need everyone reading this to tell me how much I suck for not getting a LICK of writing done all week, and how that is going to make the rest of my life miserable.

Since this is going to be a weird day online for most U.S. peeps, I leave you with things to read and laugh at, courtesy of 30 Rock's Tracy Jordan and Dr. Spaceman (spuh-CHEE-man:)

I believe there are 31 letters in the white people's alphabet!
I love you so much I'm going to take you behind the middle school and get you pregnant!
That's racist! I'm not on crack! I'm straight up mentally ill!
Affirmative action was designed to keep women and minorities in competition with each other to distract us while white dudes inject AIDS into our chicken nuggets.
So, here's some advice I wish I woulda got when I was your age: Live every week like it's Shark Week.
Stop eating people's old French fries, pigeon; have some self respect! Don't you know you can fly?

There's no real way to know just exactly where the human heart is.
Science is whatever we want it to be.
I am very serious about doctor-patient confidentiality, so I am gonna have to ask that all four of us keep this to ourselves.
Boy, it's crazy to think we used to settle questions of paternity by dunking a woman in water until she admitted she made it all up. Different time, the '60s.

(If you aren't watching that show, I just don't know what to do with you.) Have a GREAT holiday for those that celebrate! Have a GREAT Thursday for those that don't! ;)

[eta] because it's just too funny. Dennis' (pager man) letter to Liz [pre-emptive guffaw here]:
Dear Liz Lemon:

While other women have bigger boobs than you, no woman has as big a heart. When I saw you getting ready to go out and get nailed by a bunch of guys last night, I knew for sure it was over between us. And for the first time since the '86 World Series, I cried. I cried like a big dumb homo. And if it was up to me, we would be together forever. But there's a new thing called "women's liberation" which gives you women the right to choose and you have chosen to abort me, and that I must live with it. So tonight when you arrive home, I will be gone. I officially renounce my squatter's rights. I'll always love you. Goodbye and good luck. I'll never forget you.