Gingerbread Cupcakes

Gingerbread cupcakes with white piped icing and gingerbread hearts on top, displayed on a white cake stand, and a cup of coffee on the side in a white table setting

Gingerbread Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

You’ll enjoy these PSL adjacent goodies anytime of the year. Thank you to our friends at NCG for this amazing recipe!

Gingerbread is already a celebration of spices and deep, sweet molasses, and when you make it into a cupcake and add delicious cinnamon frosting, gingerbread becomes even more celebratory. The creamy frosting is a perfect foil for the dense, rich cupcakes.

In the month of October, we celebrate co-ops. Why? Because they are awesome! We feature recipes from co-ops around the country in our special Co-op Recipe Guide.

Ingredients

For the Cupcakes
  • 1 stick butter
  • ½ cup brown sugar, packed
  • 1 large egg
  • 1½ cup molasses
  • ½ cup honey
  • 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
  • 1½ cups unbleached flour
  • 1½ tsp baking soda
  • ½ tsp salt
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 tsp ginger
  • ½ tsp ground clove
  • ½ tsp black pepper
  • ½ cup hot coffee or black tea
For the Frosting
  • 8 oz cream cheese
  • ½ stick butter, softened
  • ½ tsp cinnamon
  • 2 cups powdered sugar
  • ½ tsp vanilla

Directions

  1. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Prepare a 12 cupcake pan with paper liners, and butter the top of the pan as well. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar. Beat in the egg, then the molasses and honey. Beat until smooth.
  2. In a medium bowl, combine the pastry and unbleached flours, soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, clove and black pepper. Stir to mix, then beat into the butter mixture. Pour in the hot coffee or tea and stir to mix well.
  3. Portion into the 12 cupcake tins and bake for 25-30 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out dry.
  4. For frosting, cream the butter and cream cheese, scraping down and beating until smooth. Add the cinnamon and powdered sugar and beat until smooth, drizzle in the vanilla and beat until smooth. Spread or pipe a 2 tablespoon portion of frosting on each cupcake.