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. 
I always loved fig newtons too 🙂 I have never thought of making my own. Now I know where to find a great recipe 😉
I am going to have to make these. As well as making them with some blackberries.
These look amazing and waaaay better than the store bought brand.
My husband loves fig newtons – just added this to my ever growing list of things to make!
I liked Newtons until they messed with the recipe…Maybe this version will be yummier.
I love the idea of making these at home! I still buy Newtons from time to time…they’re so nice and wholesome.
You are so creative! My family loves Fig Newtons….can’t wait to make these!
My boyfriend and I were just talking about fig newtons this evening! I was saying how much I loved them but hadnt had them recently.. and heres a way to make them myself!
I moved to the US when I was 15 so I didn’t grow up eating fig newtons but I liked them at my very first bite. I’m sure the homemade version is so much more gourmet 😉 Your pics make it look like raspberry filling which I bet would be amazing!!
These bring me back to my childhood! Only, these look infinitely more delicious and decadent. The Blue-Eyed Bakers must make these soon!
They look fantastic, and I’ve never actually been that much of a Fig Newton fan. Love the polka dot background for the pics too.
I love fig newtons. Hopefully, I can find my figs around here so I can try these.
http://www.lindaslunacy.blogspot.com
Congratulations on making one of the top food blogs!
Jonathan
Gluten Free
I was always a fig newton-lover as a kid too! Glad I wasn’t the only one and these homemade ones look fantastic!
I did make these and loved them! I did just what you suggested and used a little less of dough for that amount of filling and just made some grape jam filled ones with the rest of the dough. They came out perfect! Thanks for sharing!
http://ouritaliankitchen.blogspot.com/2010/10/fig-newtons.html
When you say scoop out the seeds and pulp–I am assuming you mean, use the seeds and pulp and discard the skins? Recipe looks good. I’m planning to make these tomorrow!
When you say scoop out the seeds and pulp–I am assuming you mean, use the seeds and pulp and discard the skins? Recipe looks good. I’m planning to make these tomorrow!
When you say scoop out the seeds and pulp–I am assuming you mean, use the seeds and pulp and discard the skins? Recipe looks good. I’m planning to make these tomorrow!
When you say scoop out the seeds and pulp–I am assuming you mean, use the seeds and pulp and discard the skins? Recipe looks good. I’m planning to make these tomorrow!
When you say scoop out the seeds and pulp–I am assuming you mean, use the seeds and pulp and discard the skins? Recipe looks good. I’m planning to make these tomorrow!
When you say scoop out the seeds and pulp–I am assuming you mean, use the seeds and pulp and discard the skins? Recipe looks good. I’m planning to make these tomorrow!
Laurel, Mikey & Quinn – Yes, scoop out the flesh and seeds and discard the skins. Let me know how they turn out!
Thank you for posting this! Great recipe and I want to try with different fillings. I used strawberry for mine – yummy!
In response to the dough ratio, I made it the way you posted but ended up with very thin dough once it was rolled out to 12×16 inches. I think you should leave it doubled.
Hi, I want to make raspberry newtons and am finding it very hard to get an easy recipe online… think I could use this dough with raspberry jam?
beantownbaker — May 16th, 2013 @ 8:41 am
You could definitely use raspberry jam for the filling!
I made them with 3 different fillings: strawberry jam, blueberry pie filling and vanilla cream. All came out very tasty, and also last freezing nicely.
A few comments:
1. The dough was not easy to deal with, even after cooling. It was sticky and fell apart easily.
2. With the first roll I made, I sliced it to cookies and separated them on the baking pan before baking. All of the Jam oozed out. The other ones I sliced but didn’t move the pieces, and it came out well.
3. I think in order to taste like real newtons they lack some oats/cereal. Any Idea of how to add some to the dough?
beantownbaker — June 10th, 2013 @ 1:10 pm
I would think you could grind up some oats and replace some of the flour with the ground up oats. If you try it, I’d love to hear how they turn out!