These cupcakes are light and fluffy, excellent in texture and flavor. I blend mascarpone cheese with vanilla buttercream for the frosting instead of the cream cheese frosting from the original recipe. The recipe below is adapted from allrecipes.com (http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Pumpkin-Spice-Cupcakes) and the buttercream from Perfect Cakes by Nick Malgieri.
Ingredients
2¼ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
½ teaspoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon ground cloves
½ teaspoon ground allspice
½ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ cup butter, softened
1 cup white sugar
⅓ cup brown sugar
2 eggs, room temperature
¾ cup milk
1 cup pumpkin puree
2 Heath Bars, crushed
Instructions
Preheat an oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease and flour 24 regular or 48 mini muffin cups, or line with paper muffin liners.
Sift together the flour, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, clove, allspice, salt, baking powder, and baking soda; set aside.
Beat ½ cup of butter, the white sugar, and brown sugar with an electric mixer in a large bowl until light and fluffy. The mixture should be noticeably lighter in color.
Add the room-temperature eggs one at a time, allowing each egg to blend into the butter mixture before adding the next. Stir in the milk and pumpkin puree after the last egg – expect the mixture will separate a bit.
Stir in the flour mixture, mixing until just incorporated. Pour the batter into the prepared muffin cups.
Bake in the preheated oven - 25 min for 24 cupcakes, 10 min for 48 cupcakes - or until golden and the tops spring back when lightly pressed.
Cool in the pans for 5 minutes before removing to cool completely on a wire rack.
Once the cupcakes are cool, frost with the buttercream icing and top with Heath Bar crunch.
Recipe by Pair The Wine at https://www.pairthewine.com/2014/10/pumpkin-cupcakes/