Let’s talk about pumpkin cupcakes. They’ve become a popular flavor, and not just during the holiday season. I googled pumpkin cupcakes and came across pages and pages of recipes, so I don’t plan to add another one into the abyss. My goal was to find the BEST pumpkin cupcake recipe out there. For me, a great pumpkin cupcake meets the following criteria:
1. It should have the texture of a cupcake and not a muffin. Not too airy, not too dense, and definitely not like a bread.
2. It has to be really pumpkiny (is that a word?)
3. The spices should be present without being overpowering
I tested three recipes- Ina Garten’s, Martha Stewart’s, and Stephanie Jaworski’s. Here’s what I thought.
1. Ina Garten’s– this recipe differs from the others in that is uses vegetable oil and not butter. While I’m usually a huge fan of Ina’s recipes, this one didn’t do it for me. Don’t get me wrong, it was still tasty, but it just wasn’t what I was looking for. A little but too much on the muffin side, and not enough pumpkin flavor.
2. Martha Stewart’s– This recipe used melted butter rather than oil. It also makes a larger batch. Other than that, I found it to be very similar to Ina Garten’s recipe. Good, but not the right texture.
3. Stephanie Jaworski’s– I found this on the Joy of Baking website. This recipe differs from the other in that it uses the creaming method. Softened butter is creamed together with the sugar, which cuts little air bubbles into the butter and makes a lighter cupcake. This was the winner in my book. The texture is exactly what I was looking for. I thought that the lack of brown sugar in the cupcakes would leave the flavor somewhat lacking in depth, but it had the most pumpkin flavor out of the three. This will now be my go to pumpkin cupcake recipe. The only thing I changed was substituting nutmeg for cloves. I don’t like cloves and tend to avoid them when baking, but that is just personal preference.
