Traditional pumpkin pie gets a very subtle taste boost from honey. Cut into appealing slices, the filling is substantial. Serve with whipped cream or frozen whipped topping, as preferred.
| Prep Time: | 1 hr |
| Cook Time: | 20 mins |
| Additional Time: | 1 hr |
| Total Time: | 2 hrs 20 mins |
| Servings: | 24 |
| Yield: | 2 dozen cupcakes |
Ingredients
- ½ cup unsalted butter
- ½ cup brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
- 2 ½ cups sifted cake flour
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup whole milk at room temperature
- 2 large egg whites at room temperature
- 1 egg at room temperature
- ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¼ teaspoon almond extract
- ½ cup unsalted butter at room temperature
- 1 ½ cups white sugar
- ½ cup cold heavy whipping cream
- 1 cup chopped pecans
- ¼ cup unsalted butter at room temperature
- 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese at room temperature
- 1 ½ cups confectioners’ sugar
- 1 drop vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon for sprinkling, or to taste
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease 24 cupcake cups or line with paper liners.
- Melt 1/2 cup unsalted butter in a saucepan over low heat; stir brown sugar and 2 tablespoons cinnamon into butter until brown sugar has dissolved and cinnamon syrup is hot, about 2 minutes. Set aside.
- Sift cake flour with baking powder and salt into a bowl. Whisk milk, egg whites, egg, 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract, and almond extract together in a separate bowl. Mix 1/2 cup butter at room temperature with white sugar in a large bowl, using an electric mixer until pale yellow and creamy, about 5 minutes. Gradually beat flour mixture into creamed butter mixture, alternating with milk mixture, until batter is well blended. Continue beating for 2 more minutes.
- Beat cold cream with an electric mixer and clean beaters in a chilled glass or metal bowl until the cream is fluffy and holds soft peaks, about 4 minutes; fold whipped cream into batter. Divide batter among the prepared cupcake cups, filling them about 2/3 full.
- Spoon 1 teaspoon of cinnamon syrup into batter in each cupcake cup. Set remaining cinnamon syrup aside.
- Bake cupcakes in the preheated oven until lightly browned and a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out with moist crumbs, about 16 minutes. Remove cupcakes from pans and let cool upside down on racks.
- Place saucepan with remaining cinnamon syrup over medium heat, stir in pecans, and bring mixture to a low boil. Immediately remove from heat and pour pecan mixture out onto a wooden cutting board. Let pecan mixture cool completely and chop the pecan candy finely.
- Beat 1/4 cup butter at room temperature with an electric mixer in a bowl until soft and creamy; beat in cream cheese until blended. Add confectioners’ sugar and a drop of vanilla extract and continue to beat on high speed until frosting is fluffy, at least 5 minutes.
- Frost cooled cupcakes with frosting and decorate each with a pinch of chopped pecan candy and a sprinkle of cinnamon.
- You can use silicone cupcake pans.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 329 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 39 g |
| Cholesterol | 51 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 1 g |
| Protein | 4 g |
| Saturated Fat | 10 g |
| Sodium | 154 mg |
| Sugars | 25 g |
| Fat | 19 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
These are tasty BUT the recipe is way too complicated and finnicky. It will dirty 4 bowls and a pan and a sifter. Plus “drop of vanilla” is an ingredient. Seriously? A single drop? The instructions for the cinnamon syrup should include cooking it to a soft ball stage for the final step to work, it does not otherwise. The final nail in the coffin is that these taste nothing like Cinnabon. Buy the mix in the store. Faster, simpler and with a lot less mess in the kitchen.
It had to much eggs in it and went over the top then deflated and didn’t fully cook
These cupcakes reminds me a little of coffee cake but they turned out very moist and full of flavour. I changed the icing a bit, opting for a buttercream with cream cheese and cinnamon added then topped them with crushed walnut pieces. They were great, and my only tip is to make sure you fill the cups almost to the top, some of my shorter pour cups were pretty flat.
I made these and they were delicious! The only thing I changed was at the end, I didn’t feel like the candied pecans were sweet enough so I added a little white sugar to the cinnamon and sprinkled that mixture over the top after adding the pecans.
Very greasy, most of cupcake stuck to the cup cake paper. The cinnamon syrup had far to much butter in it. Would never make it again
Made these for a church supper. Once they were cool I took them out of the pans and the paper wrappers were very greasy( I’m guessing from the butter in the brown sugar mix). I had to take the wrappings off to bring them to the supper as people would have had grease dripping on them. Very time consuming. Haven’t rated them yet but unless they’re spectacular I wouldn’t make them again
This was the best cupcake that i ever put together !!!!!!
I love this recipe. I swirled the cinnamon syrup in the batter to give better coverage and cinnamon in every bite. Came out awesome.
Was not all that bad, but I am not sure why would you try to dissolve sugar in butter for syrup. It will not happen. Just melt sugar, than add butter (and I added some cream as well).
It was fantastic! The only problem was that the brown sugar didn’t dissolve in the butter. Also, in my opinion, I swirled the cinimon in with the batter instead of pouring the teaspoon on top. Other than that, the cupcakes were AWESOME!!! 😀
I thought the recipe was great…feels kind of complicated, though…but I can’t really see another way to shorten the process. For those with brown sugar/butter issues : it takes several minutes. It’s not an instant reaction. You need to stir longer than 2 minutes. I have made syrups & caramel enough to know it will eventually dissolve…and I don’t keep my heat too high to prevent burning. It goes from okay to not okay really fast.
I didn’t have much time, so I made a doctored white cupcake recipe, then used the frosting and cinnamon sugar recipes from this to turn them into Cinnabon cupcakes. Delicious! I found the cinnamon sugar sank to the bottom of the cupcake when I swirled it in the batter, but who cares, you taste it with every bite regardless. The frosting was great, if a bit sparse if you want to pipe it on (I used a knife and it was fine), and the cinnamon-sugar pecans on top were a great touch.
Maybe I shouldn’t have made these on a rainy day. I would give 3 stars but since I didn’t make the frosting I will give 4 (I don’t want to get punished for not rating the whole thing) Anyway, the cupcake is okay in the tasty department. I am sure if I made the frosting it would all work great together. I thought I left enough rising room for the cupcakes but I didn’t so they cooked over giving that flat top. I also sprayed my pans with baking spray and even doing this the cupcakes were so sticky that many made it out of the pans broken.(frowns) Since they were such a mess this is why I didn’t make the frosting. I liked the flavor of the syrup but as another reviewer pointed out the brown sugar doesn’t melt down, you end up with a buttery sugary crunchy syrup. I am just going to eat them with the crunchy syrup on the cupcakes and call these my mock no fry churros.
The flavors were very good, but the cinnamon syrup was problematic. Brown sugar doesn’t dissolve in butter. The syrup ended up a mass of sugar and cinnamon swimming in a pool of melted butter. Still, it worked as a delivery system for flavor. The proportion of frosting to cupcake was a touch sparse, but not too bad, and honestly, more frosting might have stopped my heart! The pecan crumble turned out pretty bad. I am wondering if the butter in the brown sugar cinnamon mix shouldn’t be replaced with Karo or something like that. I’m just starting to learn to bake, so my thoughts shouldn’t be taken as knowledge. I’ll make these again.
This is also a great base recipe. I added some spices to it and it was fabulous!
These were very well-received when I made them at Easter. The cupcake doesn’t become anything tasting like a Cinnabon until you add the cinnamon syrup and cream cheese frosting (of course). The advantage to this is that I suppose you could leave those items out and still use this for a decent basic “blank canvas” cupcake recipe. I made one batch and only got 23 cupcakes, but I also overfilled several cups. I expect that when (not if!) I make this again, I will be better about using my “disher” for consistent amounts in each cup. I made one batch of frosting, which turned out to be pretty much exactly enough when you spread it on the cupcakes with a knife. One thing I should mention: the papers pulled away from pretty much every cupcake when they were baked; between this and the fact that they were a little crumbly, eating these cupcakes is a messy (yet still enjoyable) experience. This might be helped if you stir the syrup into the batter instead of just pouring it on top, like I did (lesson learned for next time!). Overall, this is a very delicious cupcake that’s just a bit messy – like its inspiration! Definitely will be looking for an excuse to bring these to work soon…
These were a huge hit for Easter. One thing I would mention is to make sure you swirl in the cinnamon syrup when you put it on the batter or it doesn’t really cook through the cake. I also ended up making two batches of frosting but it may have been because I used a frosting gun. They were delicious. I am positive I will be making them again.