Eggnog Cupcakes
These moist eggnog cupcakes have delicious spiced flavor from eggnog, cinnamon, and nutmeg. If you are searching for cozy holiday desserts, these simple spiced cupcakes with cream cheese frosting are the perfect choice. We hope that you enjoy them!
Table of Contents
A Quick Look at the Ingredients
Here is a quick look at our key ingredients for the cupcakes- you can find the full, printable recipe at the bottom of this post!
- Butter (We used unsalted so that we have more control over the amount of salt in the recipe. Some salted butters contain more salt than others.)
- Sugar
- Vanilla Extract
- Eggs
- Cake Flour has a lower protein content which results in less gluten formation and a more tender cake.
- Baking Powder & Baking Soda
- Salt
- Ground Cinnamon & Nutmeg give our cupcakes a boost of warm spices
- Eggnog- We recommend full fat for added richness and a nice texture.
- Sour Cream also adds a nice richness and makes for a more tender crumb.
- Vegetable Oil (we use Canola)
How to Make Eggnog Cupcakes
You can find the full recipe at the bottom of this post. Here is a look at our steps!
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, add paper cupcake liners to cupcake pan(s)
- In a medium bowl, whisk the cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt for 30 seconds. Set aside
- In another bowl, add the eggnog, vegetable oil, sour cream, and vanilla extract. Set aside.
- In the bowl of your mixer, add the softened butter and mix at medium speed until smooth. Gradually add the sugar and continue to mix on medium speed for 3 to 5 minutes until lightened in color and fluffy.
- Add the eggs one at a time, mixing after each until the yellow of the yolk has blended.
- With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture and eggnog mixture, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients (3 additions of dry ingredients and 2 of liquid).
- Mix just until incorporated. Be careful not to over-mix.
- Scoop about ¼ cup bake batter into each cupcake liner (in the cupcake pans)
- Bake at 350 degrees for 15-18 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean or with just few crumbs attached. We like to remove cupcakes immediately from the pans to prevent over-baking. Baking times can vary depending on pan & oven- check at 15 minutes to be on the safe side, but it may take a few minutes more.
- Makes 30-32 cupcakes (approximately ¼ cup of batter per cupcake)
Cream Cheese Frosting
We love to pair spice cakes and cupcakes with cream cheese frosting! This recipe is a simple combination of softened, cream cheese, butter, powdered sugar, a pinch of salt and vanilla extract.
*We used plain cream cheese frosting but for even more spice, you can add a bit of cinnamon and nutmeg.
Frosting the Eggnog Cupcakes
After the cupcakes have cooled, it is time to frost the cupcakes! Decorate however you like- the cream cheese frosting is very easy to work with. (If at any time it becomes too soft to decorate with, just pop it in the refrigerator for 10 minutes or until it firms up a bit!)
We used a 1M piping tip to pipe shells and swirls onto our cupcakes.
More Recipes
We have many more spice cake recipes and Christmas Cake Recipes to share with you! Some of our favorites are Gingerbread Cake, Eggnog Pound Cake, Red Velvet Cake, but there are so many more!
Thanks so much for stopping by! We hope that you'll come back again soon. Make sure to check out our full collection of cake recipes and cake decorating tutorials! We also have some great Christmas Cake designs to share!
Have you made this? We would LOVE for you to leave a ⭐️ rating as well as a comment and photo below! We really appreciate your feedback!
Pink Champagne Cupcakes
Ingredients
- 1 ½ sticks (170g) unsalted butter softened (holds it shape but dents when pressed)
- 2 cups (400g) sugar
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract (4g)
- 4 eggs, room temperature (If in a hurry, place eggs in a bowl of warm water for 5 minutes.)
- 3 cups cake flour (342g) (We use Swan's Down)
- 2 teaspoons baking powder (8g)
- ½ teaspoon baking soda (3g)
- ½ teaspoon salt (3g)
- ¾ cup Pink Champagne (181g) (See Notes)
- ¾ cup Sour Cream (181g) (Full fat is best)
- ¼ cup vegetable oil (54g) We use Canola Oil
- Pink Coloring Gel (optional)
Pink Champagne Buttercream
- 2 sticks (226g) unsalted butter, softned
- 5-6 cups powdered sugar (690g) Start with 5 cups, and adjust to your liking
- ¼-⅓ cup pink champagne (60g) (adjust up or down as needed for desired consistency).
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (4g)
- Pink Coloring Gel (optional)
Instructions
For the Cupcakes
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, add paper cupcake liners to cupcake pan(s)
- In a medium bowl, whisk the cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt for 30 seconds. Set aside
- In another bowl, add the pink champagne, vegetable oil, sour cream, and vanilla extract. Set aside.
- In the bowl of your mixer, add the softened butter and mix at medium speed until smooth. Gradually add the sugar and continue to mix on medium speed for 3 to 5 minutes until lightened in color and fluffy.
- Add the eggs one at a time, mixing after each until the yellow of the yolk has blended.
- With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture and champagne mixture, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients (3 additions of dry ingredients and 2 of liquid). **If adding a touch of pink coloring gel, you can do this at any time.
- Mix just until incorporated. Be careful not to over-mix.
- Scoop about ¼ cup bake batter into each cupcake liner (in the cupcake pans)
- Bake at 350 degrees for 14-16 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean or with just few crumbs attached. We like to remove cupcakes immediately from the pans to prevent over-baking. Baking times can vary depending on pan & oven- check at 14 minutes to be on the safe side, but it may take a few minutes more.
- Makes 30-32 cupcakes (approximately ¼ cup of batter per cupcake)
For the Pink Champagne Buttercream
- Add the softened butter to the bowl of your mixer, mix until smooth.
- Add half of the powdered sugar and most of the champagne. Beat at medium speed until the powdered sugar is incorporated. Add remaining powdered sugar and champagne, and the salt. If adding pink coloring gel, you can add it at anytime (very small amount).
- Mix at medium speed another 3 minutes, scraping the sides of the bowl occasionally. Then, slow the mixer to low speed for one minute more. The frosting will become very smooth.
Assembly
- Once the cupcakes have cooled, decorate however you like! You can use an offset spatula to apply the frosting or you can pipe the frosting onto the cupcakes using your piping tips of choice. We used a 1M large star tip as well as a piping bag with the end snipped away for our two types of swirls.
Refrigeration
- These cupcakes are fine to sit at room temperature under a cake dome or in an airtight container for 1-2 days. After that, we like to move them to the refrigerator for freshness. If you have chilled the cupcakes, remove them from the refrigerator a couple of hours before serving so that they can warm and soften.
These cupcakes sound wonderful and I would love to try them. However, I live in the UK and we do not have eggnog readily available in the dairy section of the supermarket. What could I use instead?
Sounds fantastic! :-)
Thanks Teri!!
How much vanilla for the frosting?
Hi Frances, thanks for catching that! We used 2 teaspoons.
These were delicious and I made them gluten free and everyone ate them, thank you.
Thank you so much for your review, Jayne! So happy to hear it.