Baking into Halloween

I always say holidays are a perfect excuse to bake. Not just to bake but bake with themes and decorations. The pumpkin craze continues and I still wanted to make something with pumpkin but without actual pumpkin in it. Long story short, one of the people I'm baking for cannot have actual pumpkin. To the spice cabinet!

All I needed was cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and ginger to give it that fall/pumpkin flavor. You can even by Pumpkin Pie Spice at the grocery store.

For once, I didn't want to go too crazy with the cupcakes so I made a simple yellow cake and a simple-ish frosting. I used shortening in the frosting to help it hold a little longer too and you can't even tell the difference. There's vegetable shortening but and vegetable shortening with butter flavor. I suggest the butter so it's not too greasy and actually tastes like what it's supposed to.

One reason I didn't want to go too crazy is because I had fun Halloween stuff to add. 

Found these at HomeGoods. Make sure you don't rip the entire seal off, otherwise you may end up with way too many sprinkles on a cupcake. 

Anyway, I added some of the pumpkin spice mixture to the cake batter but mainly saved it for the frosting. A last-minute thought was also adding some brown sugar with did add a lot without overpowering anything. 

The frosting also had a chance to stand out by using a simple yellow cake recipe. All that's left is to frost, decorate and enjoy!

Wait until you see the cookies I made with the leftover frosting. Happy Halloween!

Need something sweet? Contact It's Hip to Be Square!