Brown Butter Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

I cannot begin to say how happy I am that we issued last Friday! I think our client contacts are equally happy….we requested things left and right last week. As a little thank you for all of their help, I wanted to bake them treats. In the spirit of fall, I decided to make these brown butter cupcakes with cinnamon cream cheese frosting. The ingredients included:

Brown Butter Pumpkin Cupcakes

• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 4 eggs
• 2 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
• 2 tablespoons freshly grated nutmeg
• 3 teaspoons ground ginger
• 2 cups pumpkin puree
• 1 cup sour cream

Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

• 3 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
• 16 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
• 3 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted
• 3 tablespoons cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line muffin tins with paper liners. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium-low heat and continue to cook, swirling occasionally, until butter turns golden brown. Skim foam from top, and remove from heat. Pour into a bowl to cool.

Whisk together flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger. In another bowl, whisk together the pumpkin puree, sugar, sour cream, eggs, and brown-butter mixture. Add the wet mixture to the dry mixture, and whisk until just combined.

Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each three-quarters full. Bake until a cake tester inserted in centers comes out clean, about 12 minutes for mini cupcakes, 15 for regular sized cupcakes. Transfer tins to wire racks to cool completely before removing cupcakes. Repeat until all the batter has been used. This recipe makes about 60 mini cupcakes, and 18 normal sized cupcakes.

While the cupcakes are baking, make the frosting. Beat butter and cream cheese with a mixer on medium-high speed until fluffy (2 to 3 minutes). Reduce speed to low, and add sugar (1 cup at a time), cinnamon, and vanilla. Mix until all ingredients are fully incorporated.

Once the cupcakes have fully cooled, frost, and garnish. This recipe makes a ton of batter, so I made one  batch of regular cupcakes, and one batch of mini cupcakes. I’m not the biggest pumpkin fan, but these have changed the way I feel about pumpkin desserts 😀 This is the best pumpkin recipe I’ve made!