Nerd.
So what, like I'm not going to make Harry Potter Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting and White Chocolate Toppers?
And I was too excited to go see Harry Potter 7.2 to take any decent pictures of these before they were devoured. They were, by the way, delicious pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting (adapted from Smitten Kitchen's lovely recipe). I added mini chocolate chips, which, if I say so myself, was a pretty
genius idea -- the mini chips don't overpower the cupcakes with a huge glob of chocolate (not that it would be such a bad thing to have huge globs of chocolate). I also put in less pumpkin than was called for (accidentally) and they turned out fabulous. I might just do it again.
For the purple H.P and lightning bolt cupcakes, I used Wilton violet food coloring in a batch of cream cheese frosting. Delish. Scroll down for the recipe. To make the yellow letters/lightning, I melted a bag of white chocolate chips in a microwave-safe bowl, and then stirred in Wilton lemon yellow food coloring. I scooped it all into a ziplock bag and then snipped off the corner with some scissors. Then I used the ziplock like a piping bag (that I could throw away after the chocolate cooled/hardened) and traced out designs on wax paper.
Gryffindor Cupcakes! Were a pain in the butt, and in the end looked a little childish, but you know what? I added maple flavoring to the mane. And it was so good it nearly made up for the fact that I had a hand cramp after piping out so many colors of mane fur frosting. The picture on the left is showing off the sweet Hogwarts cupcake wrapper I made. Tutorial on that to follow.
Side by side, I liked the purple HPs better, but they were all delicious little cakes. Mmmmmm little cakes.
Pumpkin Cupcakes
Here's what you need:
One stick of unsalted butter (room temp)
One cup of brown sugar
1/3 cup granulated sugar
2 cups of cake flour
2 teaspoons of baking powder
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon of ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon of ground nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon of ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/4 teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper
2 large eggs
1/2 cup buttermilk mixed with 2 teaspoons of vanilla
1 cup canned solid-pack pumpkin (the original recipe called for 1 1/4 cups, so do what your heart tells you is right.)
Here's what you do:
Preheat the oven to 350 and put little cupcake liners in your cupcake pan. Ready? Okay.
Mix the butter and sugars in your stand mixer for 5 minutes. While that's happening, sift the flour and additional dry ingredients in a bowl. Then add the eggs and make sure you scrape down the side of the bowl. Then alternate pouring flour mixture and milk into the bowl, letting the mixer mix things up for a few seconds between each alternation. When everything is in and mixed, then add the pumpkin and mix some more. Then, if you want to get crazy, add chocolate chips. Or mini chocolate chips. Even better.
Fill the cupcake cups 1/2 to 3/4 of the way full. I like mine a little under filled so that they are all uniform, but I'm kind of nuts. Bake them for 17 minutes and then let them cool on a rack before frosting.
Cream Cheese Frosting
Here's what you need:
One 8-oz package of cream cheese. Obvi. (room temp)
Three Tablespoons of unsalted butter (room temp)
One Tablespoon of vanilla (I like Trader Joe's Bourbon Vanilla)
One to Three Tablespoons of milk or cream
One normal-size bag of powdered sugar
Here's what you do:
Beat together the cream cheese and the butter until it looks all light and fluffy (1 minute). Add the vanilla and mix well. Alternate adding powdered sugar and milk until you have the consistency of frosting you like. Add more milk for a glaze-like consistency, or if you want to make Gryffindor lion manes, add the whole bag of powdered sugar and only one tablespoon of milk.
An additional option is to add a cap full of Mapleine, or maple flavoring. Maple + pumpkin = yum.
For Harry Potter swirls, use a 1M frosting tip in a piping bag and swirl frosting from the outer edge of the cupcake in toward the middle. Ta da!
Oh, my. You are adorable.
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