Gluten free pumpkin cupcakes with pumpkin butter and topped with pumpkin icing or cream cheese frosting, made full-sized or mini. The best of the season!
On a brighter note, I am digging this baking-with pumpkin-butter thing! You really can't match the depth of flavor in pumpkin butter with an equal amount of pumpkin puree – canned or fresh.
I made mini cupcakes thinking that I would pack some in my kids' lunches this week. They're always talking about those little bags of “mini bites” that Nabisco or somebody or other makes. These stay moist enough that they'll survive a few days on the counter so you can keep packing them for lunch – minus the frosting or icing of course.
Part of me can't believe that my kids feel deprived that they don't have those prepackaged mini muffins in their lunchboxes. I mean, can you even begin to imagine the embarrassment of baked riches in their lives? But most of me totally gets it. They're kids.
Soft and moist, 2-bite mini pumpkin butter cupcakes with just a dollop of cream cheese molasses frosting. If you want to make these full-sized in a standard 12-cup muffin tin, just bake them for about 10 minutes longer, still at 325°F.
Ingredients and substitutions
Dairy
If you can't have dairy, I recommend you use the pumpkin glaze rather than the frosting, since there is no nondairy cream cheese that tastes like actual cream cheese. At least that's been my experience.
In place of the butter in the cupcakes, I recommend trying vegan butter like Miyoko's Kitchen or Melt brand. I don't recommend using any oil that is liquid at room temperature, but you can try using virgin coconut oil, softened.
Eggs
There are two eggs in this recipe. You should be able to replace each of them with a “chia egg.”
For each, place 1 tablespoon ground white chia seeds + 1 heaping tablespoon lukewarm water in a small bowl. Mix, and allow to gel before using in the recipe.