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Pumpkin Cupcakes

Last Updated On: November 08, 2024 | Published: August 26, 2023 by Melissa Diamond | 6 Comments
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If you are searching for the perfect recipe for Pumpkin Cupcakes, look no further!

These spiced Pumpkin Cupcakes are super moist, soft, and delicious. Keep this recipe in mind for your fall celebrations!

Platter of Pumpkin Cupcakes, topped with cream cheese frosting and piped pumpkins.

Why we Love Them

There are so many reasons to love these Pumpkin Cupcakes. Here are just a few!

Ingredients for Pumpkin Cupcakes

Here is a quick look at the ingredients for our Pumpkin Cupcakes. You can find the full listing and details in the recipe card at the bottom of this post!

(The photo features ingredients for the cupcakes, not the cream cheese frosting.)

Pumpkin Cupcake Recipe ingredients.

Canned Pumpkin: Make sure to use canned pumpkin rather than pumpkin pie filling.

Unsalted Butter: We prefer to use unsalted butter so that we have more control over the amount of salt in the recipe (as some brands of unsalted butter have more salt than others). If you use salted butter in this recipe, omit the additional salt.

Milk: We prefer to use whole milk or 2% in our recipes.

Spices: We used pumpkin pie spice and cinnamon. You can make adjustments to your liking. These warm spices are the perfect combination with the pumpkin flavor of these cupcakes!

How to Make Pumpkin Cupcakes

These moist pumpkin cupcakes are guaranteed to be a crowd favorite! Don't miss the full, printable recipe card further down in this post!

  • Preheat the oven to 350℉. Add paper cupcake liners to the cupcake pan.
  • In a medium sized bowl, add the all purpose flour, pumpkin pie spice, ground cinnamon, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Whisk to blend thoroughly. Set aside.
Dry ingredients for pumpkin cupcakes in a bowl with whisk.
  • In the bowl of your electric mixer (using paddle attachment if using a stand mixer), add softened butter and sugar. Mix for 3-5 minutes, until lightened in color and fluffy.
Creaming Butter and Sugar with paddle attachment of stand mixer
  • Next, add the room temperature eggs, one at a time, mixing after each until the yellow of the yolk has blended in.
Adding Eggs to Cake Batter in Stand Mixer
  • Add the canned pumpkin and vanilla extract. Mix on low speed to blend.
  • With the mixer on low speed, and beginning and ending with the flour mixture, add the flour mixture alternately with the milk. We did a total of three additions of the flour mixture and two additions of the milk. Mix just until incorporated. Makes approximately 7.5 cups of pumpkin cake batter.
Pumpkin Cupcake Batter
  • Scoop the cake batter into the paper liners. We use a ¼ cup scoop for this. This recipe will make about 30 or so cupcakes.
Pumpkin Cupcake Batter in paper liners in pans.
  • Bake at 350℉ for 15-18 minutes. They are done when an inserted toothpick comes out clean or with just a few moist crumbs attached. The centers should also spring back when lightly touched.
Pumpkin Cupcakes cooling on a wire rack.
  • After removing the cupcake pans from the oven, remove the cupcakes so that they will not continue to bake. We like to sit them on cooling racks for even cooling.

Cream Cheese Frosting

We have frosted so many of our favorite cakes and cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, including Carrot Cake, Italian Cream Cake, Spice Cake, and more.

This recipe is a go-to for pumpkin cake recipes and cupcakes as well! This flavorful cream cheese frosting is a simple combination of softened cream cheese, confectioners sugar, salt, and vanilla.

Cream Cheese Frosting

Decorating the Pumpkin Cupcakes

You can decorate your pumpkin cupcakes however you like, from a simple slathering of frosting with a small offset spatula to pretty swirls, stars, ruffles, and more.

We made a variety of designs, using a 1M piping tip for swirls, a 104 petal tip for ruffles, and a tip 12 for a smooth, flat spiral.

Piping rows of ruffled cream cheese frosting onto pumpkin cupcake with a 104 piping tip.

These would be pretty just as they are, but we decided to add pumpkins to some of the cupcakes using an 8B piping tip (or similar large french tip.)

*Check out our tutorial on Cupcake Basics for more easy piping techniques!

Platter of Pumpkin Cupcakes with Decorative Cream Cheese Piping.

Here, I'm adding a leaf (tip 352) to my pumpkin (tip 8B). The stems for my pumpkins are jimmies, but frosting from a small round tip would work also.

The pumpkins and leaves are cream cheese frosting tinted with coloring gels.

Piping decorative pumpkins and leaves on top of the frosted pumpkin cupcakes.

We love how these came out- the perfect dessert for fall!

Pumpkin Cupcakes, frosted with cream cheese frosting and piped pumpkin accents.

Recipe FAQs

Because of the cream cheese frosting, these cupcakes do need to be refrigerated.

However, for best flavor and texture, you can remove the cupcakes from the refrigerator 1-2 hours before serving. This will allow them time to warm and soften.

For a less perishable frosting that could sit out longer, you could use our classic vanilla buttercream. A bit of cinnamon added to it would be nice also!

Yes, just as with our Caramel Cupcakes, Lemon Cupcakes, Oreo Cupcakes (and more), these cupcakes can be baked in advance and frozen.

First, allow the cupcakes to cool. Line them up on a cardboard sheet cake board or tray, layer with plastic wrap and then tightly wrap with a sheet or two of aluminum foil. Freeze for up to three months!

To thaw: Bring the wrapped cupcakes to the kitchen counter and thaw for 30 minutes before removing the wrapping and continuing to thaw. Decorate as usual!

In addition to these delicious pumpkin cupcakes, we have many more recipes for you! Our Lemon Cupcakes, Banana Cupcakes, and Homemade Chocolate Cupcakes are scratch recipes that are always in high demand.

We also have great cake mix cupcake recipes including strawberry cupcakes, carrot cake cupcakes, Oreo Cupcakes, and Banana Pudding Cupcakes!

Platter of Pumpkin Cupcakes, frosted with cream cheese frosting and decorative piping.

More Pumpkin Cakes

We have several more pumpkin cakes for you to try, as well as delicious fall cake recipes!

Some of our favorites are Pumpkin Snickerdoodle Cake, Easy Pumpkin Cake Mix Recipe, Pumpkin Gingerbread Cake, Pumpkin Snickerdoodle Bundt Cake, and Pumpkin Toffee Pecan Pound Cake.

Here are a few more of our favorite fall cakes:

Don't miss our huge Cake Recipes section, which includes our favorite cake recipes from scratch as well as cake mix recipes!

Also, we have so many great free Cake Decorating tutorials to share with you!

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!

Platter of Pumpkin Cupcakes, frosted with cream cheese frosting and decorative piping.

Pumpkin Cupcakes

BY Melissa and Bebe
These delicious Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes are so moist and flavorful. They have the perfect balance of pumpkin and warm spices, along with cream cheese frosting!
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Course: Dessert
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Ingredients

  • 1 ½ sticks (170g) unsalted butter (softened. Soft enough to easily dent when pressed but still hold shape.)
  • 2 ½ cups (500g) sugar
  • 3 eggs, room temperature (if in a hurry, place eggs in a bowl of warm water for 5 minutes)
  • 2 ½ cup (302g) All Purpose Flour
  • 2 teaspoon (8g) Baking Powder
  • 1 teaspoon (5g) Baking Soda
  • 2 teaspoons (4g) Pumpkin Pie Spice
  • 1 teaspoons (2g) Ground Cinnamon
  • ½ teaspoon (3g) salt
  • 15 oz (425g) Canned Pumpkin (Not Pumpkin Pie Filling. We used Libbys 100% Pure Pumpkin)
  • 1 cup (242g) Milk (We use whole milk or 2%.)
  • 1 teaspoon (6g) Vanilla Extract

Cream Cheese Frosting

  • 2 sticks (226g) unsalted butter, softened
  • 16 oz (452g total weight) cream cheese, softened (We used two 8 oz packages, not reduced fat.)
  • 2 teaspoons (8g) vanilla extract
  • ½ teaspoon (2g) salt
  • 6 to 6 ½ cups (690g-747g) powdered sugar (Start with 6 cups, add additional as needed.)

Instructions

For the Pumpkin Cupcakes

  • Preheat the oven to 350℉. Add paper cupcake liners to the cupcake pan.
  • In a medium sized bowl, add the flour, pumpkin pie spice, cinnamon, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Whisk to blend thoroughly. Set aside.
  • In the bowl of your electric mixer (using paddle attachment if using a stand mixer), add softened butter and sugar. Mix for 3-5 minutes, until lightened in color and fluffy.
  • Next, add the eggs, one at a time, mixing after each until the yellow of the yolk has blended in.
  • Add the canned pumpkin and vanilla. Mix on low speed to blend.
  • With the mixer on low speed, and beginning and ending with the flour mixture, add the flour mixture alternately with the milk. We did a total of three additions of the flour mixture and two additions of the milk. Mix just until incorporated.
    Makes approximately 7.5 cups of cake batter.
  • Scoop the pumpkin cake batter into the paper liners. We use a ¼ cup scoop for this. This recipe will make about 30 or so cupcakes.
  • Bake at 350℉ for 15-18 minutes. They are done when an inserted toothpick comes out clean or with just a few moist crumbs attached. The centers should also spring back when lightly touched.
  • After removing the cupcake pans from the oven, remove the cupcakes so that they will not continue to bake. We like to sit them on cooling racks for even cooling.

For the Cream Cheese Frosting

  • Add the softened butter to the bowl of your mixer. Mix on low to medium speed until the butter is smooth.
  • Cut the softened cream cheese into pieces and add to the butter, mixing at low to medium speed until incorporated. If you are using a hand mixer you may need to soften the cream cheese a bit more.
  • Add the vanilla. Gradually add the powdered sugar, mixing on low speed until blended. Cover the bowl with a towel to keep down the cloud of powdered sugar.
  • Increase mixing speed and mix until fluffy. Be careful not to over mix or it will become too soft. If it becomes too soft, just refrigerate a short while to firm it up a bit.
  • This frosting will pipe best if used while still chilled. You can make it in advance, refrigerate and when ready to use let it soften slightly (do not microwave) and remix

5 from 3 votes (2 ratings without comment)

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6 Comments

  1. I would like to purchase a cookbook from you and I just love receiving the recipes!!!

    Thank you so very much!

    Reply

  3. 5 stars
    Sounds good! How do I translate this to make a regular cake? We're not a big cupcake household, but I really want to try it.

    Reply

  4. Made this recipe plus your Banana cupcake and Applesauce cupcakes for a fall themed baby shower and everyone loved them. I will be trying more of your recipes!

    Reply