Gingerbread Cupcakes with Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting
Gingerbread is a classic holiday flavor. I actually had never had gingerbread until I met Hubby. I guess it just wasn’t part of my eating background growing up. A few years ago I made some gingerbread cut out cookies that had a lemon cream cheese frosting piped onto them. I was remembering those cookies when I decided to make these cupcakes. I’m entering these cupcakes into Baking Bites Holiday Cupcake Contest (and just barely in time since entries are due by midnight tonight!)
I love these cupcakes because they have very festive sprinkles, (I love sprinkles), festive colors, and festive flavors. For the frosting, I made a lemon cream cheese frosting. Lemon actually pairs really well with gingerbread even though most people gave a weird look when I told them the frosting flavor.
I mentioned the festive colors. Not only are the sprinkles red and green, but the cupcake liners are as well. I love the vibrant colors of these liners and I’m hoping Santa brought me some more, because I’m starting to run low.
Gingerbread Cupcakes with Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting
Yield: 24
Ingredients:
For the Gingerbread Cupcakes
1 1/2 c flour
2 Tbsp ground ginger
2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1 1/2 c (3 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temp
1 1/2 c sugar
3 Tbsp molasses
4 eggs, at room temp
1 tsp vanilla extract
For the Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting
1 8-ounce package cream cheese, at room temperature
1/2 stick unsalted butter
4 cups confectioners' sugar
Zest of 1 lemon, grated
2 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
Directions:
For the Gingerbread Cupcakes
Preheat oven to 350. Line muffin tins with paper liners.
Sift flour and spices together and set aside.
Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add molasses and beat until combined. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until combined. Beat in vanilla. With mixer on low, add flour mixture until just combined.
Fill each muffin tin ~3/4 full. Bake ~25 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool completely.
For the Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting
With an electric mixer on medium, beat the cream cheese and butter until softened. Slowly add the sugar, zest, and juice and beat until creamy, about 3 minutes.
Gingerbread Cupcakes recipe from Martha Stewart
Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting recipe adapted from 52 Cupcakes
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. 
What a delicious entry and thank you for submitting it to this month’s Tasty Tools!
yum – these look so good!
i often write posts well after the recipe has been made and photographed, especially if there’s no recognizable feature (like a holiday).
woah! these look fantastic!!! Jen, are you EVER moving to Indy? We need to move in next door to each other. We’ll help you ‘take care of’ all of your experiments. 🙂
Ha Amy – I doubt we’d ever end up in Indy… Cincy is about as close as we’ll get… Or you guys can move to Boston 😉
They look amazing! Great job!
What a great idea – two tastey desserts in one! I like Amy’s idea too. At least if you live in Cincy we could get a carrier pigeon or something…
Or we just need a carrier pigeon who can handle the distance from Boston.
This looks great! My husband’s favorite dessert is also creme brulee 🙂
Oh my heavens! That looks so good!
I really like the way you frosted these – gives me ideas. Here’s a creme brulee recipe for anyone interested in trying – it’s really easy – but you’re right – doesn’t travel. Happy baking.
Thanks for sharing mouth watering I love Creme Brulee. So good.
Yum those sound & look DELISH! Thanks for sharing the recipe & tip on another way to frost my cupcakes. 🙂
~ingrid
These look amazing!
Super cute way to ice the cupcakes! Creme Brulee is my favourite dessert, I think these need to be added to my list of must makes!
I like your blogging strategy – I tend to be the exact same way! Sometimes I get so backlogged and other times, I’ll have 10 posts sitting as drafts.
These cupcakes look so good – a nice twist on a traditional frosted cupcakes. I would have never thought to do this.
Wow – what a fabulous recipe! They must be delicious!
I made these last year and they were SO GOOD! I love creme brulee.
I’d like to try making these for a coworker’s birthday, but I have 2 questions. First, is there anyway to toast the top if I don’t have a torch? Second, how far in advance could I make all or any of the components? Thanks!
Xiaolu – Sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner. I was on vacation. I don’t know if you could torch them without a torch… I know for creme brulee you can use a broiler, but it doesn’t work so well. I wouldn’t make these too far in advance. We noticed the cupcakes going stale within a day or two.
Hi again, Jen! I didn’t end up making these until tonight. They taste good, but this was my first time making SMBC and I think I did something wrong. It’s funny, my buttercream never broke/curdled when I added the butter and I heard slapping noises almost immediately. But it was too soft to pipe, so I chilled it then rewhipped. Unfortunately, the SMBC softened again pretty quickly and also started looking a little curdled. Do you have any idea what I might’ve done wrong? Could the meringue have been too warm still when I added the butter? Thanks again!
Xiaolu
Xiaolu – Sorry for not getting back to you sooner. I’m no expert on SMBC, but your butter may have been too soft. It should be just at room temp. I would definitely check out this tutorial on SMBC. I found it very helpful when I was first starting to make SMBC.
I’ve made these cupcakes, and they are amazing, but when I use my creme brulee torch to carmelize the sugar, the frosting melted and slid off the cupcake. To get around this, I carmelized the brown sugar on a piece of tinfoil and then placed the pieces on top of the frosting. I tried using a smaller flame, holding the torch further away from the cupcake, and even froze the cupcake with the frosting for a little bit, but nothing would stop the frosting from melting off. Am I doing something wrong?
Tonya, It’s been a while since I made these, but I do remember that the first one I did, the frosting melted off. After that I had Hubby do the torching and he just kept the flame further away from the frosting. We also let the set before moving them once they had been torched. Sorry that you’re having so much trouble with the recipe. But it sounds like you may have found a solution.
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