Ginger Pumpkin Cupcakes (Cupcake Hero)
This month’s Cupcake Hero theme is Squash. Luckily pumpkin is considered a squash. That makes my day because I do love baking with pumpkin!
I had some leftover Pumpkin Pie Dip from the other day and I wanted to incorporate it into a cupcake. I wanted to make a cupcake that would compliment the pumpkin well, so I thought of the ginger snaps I had served the dip with… I reused a cookies and cream cupcake recipe except instead of using Oreos, I added crushed up ginger snap cookies to the batter. These smelled amazing coming out of the oven.
Using the cone method, I scooped some of the pumpkin dip into the cooled cupcakes. I then frosted with some cinnamon cream cheese frosting that I had in the fridge. Then I simply sprinkled some chopped walnuts on top for garnish.
Cookies-N-Cream Cupcakes – 6 WW pts with frosting (from Crazy about Cupcakes) makes 24
1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup milk – I used soymilk
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 2/3 cup sugar
3 large egg whites, at room temperature
Preheat over to 350F. Insert liners into a medium cupcake pan.
In a large bowl cream together the butter, milk, and vanilla with an electric mixer until fluffy, about 3-5 minutes.
In a separate bowl mix together the flour, baking powder, and salt.
Add the dry ingredients to butter mixture. Mix until integrated. Stir in sugar. With an electric mixer on low speed, beat for 30 seconds. Turn the mixer up to medium speed and beat for 2 minutes. Add the egg whites. Beat for 2 more minutes. Stir in the crushed cookies.
Fill the cupcake lines three-quarters full. Bake for about 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of cupcakes comes out clean. Cool cupcakes in the pan.






I am Jen the Beantown Baker. Engineer by day and baking maven by night. Hubby serves as my #1 fan and official taste tester. We got hitched back in 2006. Barefoot. In the sand. With the waves crashing behind us. It was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. 






Unfortunately I didn’t enjoy these. It had all my favourite flavours, so I thought they would be delicious but I had a feeling whilst making they were going to be too sweet, and they were.
Also the base definitely needs increasing as half the mix barely covers the bottom of the tin and with two wet elements it needs to be sturdier. Whilst the side pieces all stayed together the middle ones were just a gooey mess.
But still didn’t detract from the biggest issue – far too sweet. (And I have plenty a sweet tooth!)
Lovely blog though! (Sorry, hate leaving negative feedback! I just wouldn’t want someone else to have the same issues. Also, tinned pumpkin is quite pricey in the UK so wouldn’t want others to waste money on a recipe that doesn’t work)
beantownbaker — December 26th, 2013 @ 11:02 am
Sorry to hear this recipe didn’t work out for you… Thanks for the feedback.
I’m going to try these. I think Brits don’t generally eat things as sweet as we do and I read the recipe and it doesn’t seem as if it has too much sugar, but I am going to double the crust recipe because it does seem as if it is a bit scant, plus I’m going to make a double batch. Tell me, do these have to be stored in the fridge? I see the note to put in fridge to set. Are they too soft at room temp? If so, do you think not adding the milk to the dulce de leche would take care of that? I’m bringing them to an event and there will be no refrigeration available.