You may have seen this post a little earlier in the week over on JavaCupcake, a fantastic food blog with a special focus on cupcakes. The owner, Betsy, took an interest in my blog and asked me to do a holiday cupcake guest post, I did some brainstorming and came up with these gingerbread cupcakes with brown butter frosting!

The holidays are coming, it’s December, and you need to get in the kitchen RIGHT NOW.

Seriously, pick up your computer (I don’t care if it’s a desktop) and get in the kitchen.

Take out some molasses, brown sugar, butter, and your mixer and let’s get started, the holidays are going to be here before you know it and you will want to be prepared with this gingerbread cupcakes with brown butter frosting.
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My camera didn’t feel like cooperating today. I didn’t get a single good picture.

I did get some delicious cupcakes though, that’s all that matters.

The cupcake resembles banana bread, a little lighter but still dense and flavorful. Top it with a generous helping of nutella buttercream to put it into a new realm of deliciousness. You could also go an extra step and swirl in some nutella, like my self-frosting nutella cupcakes.

Print Recipe
Banana Cupcakes
Adapted from Martha Stewart

Makes about 12 cupcakes

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1 1/2 cups mashed bananas (about 4 ripe bananas)
2 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line a muffin tin with paper liners.

Sift and whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Make a well in the dry ingredients and mix in butter, mashed bananas, eggs, and vanilla. Stir to incorporate wet and dry ingredients being very careful not to overmix.

Fill each cupcake liner 2/3 full and bake for about 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool completely on a wire rack before frosting.

Nutella Buttercream
Adapted from food.com

3/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
3 cups confectioners’ sugar
1/3 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup nutella, softened

Cream butter and 1 cup confectioners sugar together, add in half of milk, then add another cup of confectioners sugar, then add in the rest of the milk and vanilla extract. Add the final cup of confectioners sugar and the nutella and mix until well combined and the desired consistency.

This isn’t technically stuffing, it’s called “dressing” since it wasn’t cooked inside a turkey…but I’m going to call it stuffing because it’s easier.

It’s vegetarian too!

And looks like a cupcake!!! I baked it in a cupcake tin and then topped it with some mashed potatoes. It’s really perfect for Thanksgiving coming up or any dinner. It’s easy to eat, compact, and gets two of your side dishes together. You could garnish it with chives or (vegetarian) bacon or just leave it as is like I did. It’s super easy to make and is an easy way to impress your guests.
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I’m clearly ready for December and the holidays to roll in.

I have my themed liners out, my holiday recipes ready, and I have some vanilla bean cupcakes. Life is good.

I could use some snow though. Oh well. I have these cupcakes to console me. You could too, they are super simple but super tasty.
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I made these chocolate cupcakes for my class for a visual communications project and thought I’d share them with you.

It’s just my basic chocolate cupcake with chocolate buttercream recipe with white chocolate for the lettering. I tried to draw the pug-in-a-cupcake logo on top but it didn’t work out too well.

By the way, Martha Stewart was great on Monday. We got a backstage tour and got to eat some delicious cookies (sugar cookies with some lemon zest, yes please). You can read about it on my twitter, the posts with the hashtag #marthatweets.

Before we dive into these cupcakes, I have some great news!

Tomorrow, Monday, November 1st, I will be in the Martha Stewart show audience in the special twitter section, tweeting about everything going on in the studio as the show happens, so head over to http://twitter.com/ryansbakingblog and follow me on Twitter so you can get all the updates. The show starts at 10am, but I’ll be tweeting way before then! So tune into the show and also keep checking up on my twitter!

As for the cupcakes, I figured I’d do something relevant to Martha Stewart, so these are made with her recipe for one-bowl chocolate cupcakes and also a vanilla buttercream recipe from her website. They are extremely simple to make, great if you waited until last minute to bake for Halloween, just toss in some orange food coloring and garnish with candy corn like I did.
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Chocolate.

Chocolate.

Chocolate.

That is what these cupcakes are made of. A moist chocolate cake that has been double-dipped in chocolate ganache and then coated with chocolate buttercream.

I invited my friend Dan over to help, you’ll see his hand dipping the cupcakes in ganache later on, I also gave him the annoying task of chopping chocolate because I’m such a good friend.
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Vanilla is a really underrated flavor. People think of it as plain or boring but when it’s done right it really shines.

These are pretty plain though, still delicious and easy, but nothing like the cupcake I’m going to be talking about in a few days.

I got lazy and didn’t feel like scraping a vanilla bean (although if you have the time, scrape one vanilla bean into this recipe and cut out the extract).
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I love milk. Whole, fat free, sweetened condensed, chocolate, you name it (except strawberry milk).

Tres leches means “three milk”, in this case: heavy cream, evaporated milk, and sweetened condensed milk. These are combined and brushed over cupcakes, they soak in and create a moist, sweet cake. You can step it up and add a dollop of whipped cream and some cinnamon for garnish.
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School is in full effect, I’m swamped with classes, work is picking up pace and I’m busy with that, and I haven’t had nearly enough time in the kitchen as I would like. Thankfully, these cupcakes are pretty quick to prepare since they don’t have frosting (I guess you have to make the cream cheese filling..but that’s okay because these are delicious).
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