Sasha's Kitchen: Gingerbread Cupcakes with Orange Cream Cheese Frosting

I know how popular cupcake posts seem to be, but as much as everyone seems to enjoy reading them, I can't just make cupcakes every weekend. I did make some cupcakes recently that I haven't posted yet, that I'd like to share with readers.  Gingerbread cupcakes is really a fall recipe, but when I saw the recipe in one of my cookbooks, Dishing Up Vermont, I knew I had to try it anyhow. I did some research for gingerbread cupcake recipes out there and this one seemed like the best one to try. I liked how the recipe made the gingerbread the genuine way, using a combination of spices and unsulfured molasses. Just be forewarned: unsulfured molasses has an unpleasant oder, but that all goes away when you mix it with the other ingredients.

I'm not making any more cupcakes until next weekend, when I'll be doing coconut cupcakes. This weekend, I plan to make cheesecake and a seasonal strawberry rhubarb crumble.  I should add that only the cupcake recipe is from the cookbook - I developed my own orange frosting recipe that is a bit simpler and plenty fresh orange.  So what happened to these cupcakes? Well they look like normal cupcakes in these pictures, quite a few of them (I made a double catch) got turned into my signature Alice in Wonderland Cupcakes.

Gingerbread Cupcakes with Orange Cream Frosting (recipe adapted from Dishing Up Vermont)

1 1/4 cup flour

1 1/2 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground cloves

1/2 tsp ground allspice

1/4 tsp ground salt

4T butter

1/2 granulated sugar

1/2 cup unsulfured molasses

1 egg

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 cup boiling water

Sasha's Orange Cream Cheese Frosting

2 T orange zest, freshly grated

1 8 oz package of cream cheese

1/2 stick of butter

3 cups confectioner's sugar

drop of orange food coloring

Preheat the oven to 350 and line a muffin tin with paper cupcake liners. Mix the dry ingredients together (the flour, spices and salt). Then, in the basin of your mixer, beat the 4 tablespoons of butter with the granulated sugar.  Add the molasses and the egg, continuing to beat until smooth. Be warned that the mixture may appear to curdle slightly and this really isn't a problem at this point in the recipe. 

In a small bowl, whisk together the baking soda with 1/2 cup of boiling water. Combine into the main mixture, whisking until combined.

Divide among the cupcake holders, filling each until about 3/4 full.  Bake for about 20 minutes until firm to the touch and lightly browned.  Like I have said before, you can use a toothpick to test the inside of the cupcake - it comes out clean when they are ready to come out of the oven.

Allow the cupcakes to cool completely before you frost them.  To make the frosting, zest the orange and beat the confectioner's sugar, butter, cream cheese and butter for several minutes on high speed until the frosting has the right consistency.  Add a drop of orange food coloring to get the color. 

And yes, these tasted as good as they look.