Gingerbread Cupcakes with Eggnog Buttercream
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These moist Gingerbread Cupcakes with Eggnog Buttercream Frosting are made from scratch and the perfect handheld non-cookie treat for your holiday party this year! Made with molasses, ginger, cinnamon, and other spices, these cupcakes taste just like Christmas.
We love all things gingerbread! Some of our other gingerbread recipes are How to Make a Gingerbread House, Soft & Chewy Molasses Cookies, and Soft & Chewy Gingerbread Men Cookies!
I’m starting a new thing I’m calling “Reader Requests”. For the past few weeks, I’ve had a survey up on some of my most popular blog posts and have been collecting feedback from visitors to my site. One of the questions where I asked readers if they had any specific recipes they would like to see on the blog has been eye-opening for me and inspired me to start this new series.
Guys, I’m seriously blown away by the responses! There have been so many great ideas (some that were already on my radar and others that I hadn’t even thought of) that I started compiling a spreadsheet to organize them and help me plan my calendar for next year!
As much as I can, I will try to work my way through and give a shout-out to the requester or requesters (some recipes have had multiple requests – I’m looking at you lasagna) when I share it. Stay tuned to see if I cover your request!
To get things rolling, Carmen J. asked for more cupcake recipes (I’ve got s’mores cupcakes with graham cracker frosting and chocolate cupcakes, which, obviously that’s not enough because who doesn’t need more cupcakes in their life?!).
And Christine P. specifically mentioned gingerbread cupcakes. Um, YES PLEASE!
I adore gingerbread. Really I do. The warm spices and the deep rich molasses flavor get me every time.
I think gingerbread men cookies are just the best, I’ve used gingerbread spices to make gingerbread whipped cream for crepes, and I love a good molasses cookie!
One of these years I’m going to get around to sharing my favorite gingerbread cake with whipped cream and bananas, but for now, let’s talk gingerbread cupcakes!
How to Make Gingerbread Cupcakes
This recipe makes 12-14 cupcakes as written.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and line a muffin pan with cupcake liners. Make sure all the ingredients are at room temperature, because it really does make a difference when making cake and cupcakes to work with room temperature ingredients vs. cold butter, eggs, and milk.
- In a stand mixer, beat the butter and brown sugar on medium speed using the paddle attachment until light and creamy.
- Add the egg, milk, molasses, and vanilla, mixing well and scraping down the sides and bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula. The ingredients won’t totally combine to a homogenous look just yet, but don’t you worry – they will finish coming together with the addition of the dry ingredients.
- Add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice, mixing on low speed just until combined and making to sure scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl again so the ingredients are evenly mixed throughout the batter.
- Fill cupcake liners 2/3 full – no more! I like to use a cookie scoop to do this to help keep things clean and even. I often find that there is just enough batter left over for 1-2 more cupcakes (making 13-14 total cupcakes) if I’m sticking to the 2/3 full guideline. Sometimes I get lazy and divvy that extra up between the 12 cupcake liners so they are more like 3/4 full and I usually regret it because the tops aren’t as round and end up with a rim around the edges, where when I am a stickler for no more than 2/3 full I get better rounded cupcake tops. You can see evidence of this in the two pictures below, where some of the cupcakes got just a bit too full since I was rushing to get these done to photograph them before running out to a Christmas party. The cupcake in front and in focus is perfectly rounded while the blurry ones toward the back got filled a bit too much. Oops.
- Bake cupcakes for 19-21 minutes, until a toothpick comes out with just a few crumbs when inserted into the center of a cupcake, then cool completely before frosting.
What Frosting to Use for Gingerbread Cupcakes
Speaking of frosting, I’ve got an AMAZING eggnog buttercream frosting recipe for you that I used to frost this batch of gingerbread cupcakes. Not to toot my own horn, but really, they were pretty phenomenal.
I took these to a church Christmas party and had multiple people who were initially skeptical and said they didn’t like eggnog come up to me and say that it turns out they DO like eggnog in frosting form apparently.
For the record, I also truly think that most people who say they don’t like eggnog have only tried store-bought eggnog, which is by and large no bueno. Do me a favor and make a batch of homemade eggnog and THEN tell me what you really think. I’m betting more than half of you will have a change of heart.
But if you are truly skeeved out by eggnog, you could go with a classic vanilla buttercream, or (and I think this would be amazing and I want so desperately to try it but just haven’t had the time this season) make a batch of homemade rainbow chip frosting and color the chips red and green! (Seriously, I’m going to have to make that happen soon because I love, love, love gingerbread and white chocolate together!).
I’m also very interested in the cinnamon cream cheese frosting that King Arthur Flour pairs with their gingerbread cupcake recipe. So many frostings, so little time. Sigh.
More Christmas Desserts That Aren’t Cookies
- Sticky Toffee Pudding (soooooo good – my mom declared this her favorite dessert)
- Black Forest Cheesecake
- Cranberry Orange Pull-Apart Monkey Bread
- Old-Fashioned Divinity Candy
- Best Red Velvet Cake
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Gingerbread Cupcakes
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup butter softened to room temperature
- 1/2 cup light brown sugar packed
- 1 large egg room temperature
- 1/2 cup whole milk room temperature
- 1/2 cup molasses
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- Pinch of ground allspice
- 1 batch eggnog buttercream frosting or other favorite frosting recipe
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and line a muffin pan with cupcake liners.
- In a stand mixer, beat butter and brown sugar on medium speed using a paddle attachment until light and creamy, about 2 minutes.
- Add the egg, milk, molasses, and vanilla, mixing well and scraping down the sides and bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Don’t worry if the ingredients don’t totally combine – they will finish coming together with the addition of the dry ingredients in the next step.
- Add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice, mixing on low speed just until combined and making to sure scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl again.
- Fill cupcake liners 2/3 full. Bake for 19-21 minutes, until a toothpick comes out with just a few crumbs when inserted into the center of a cupcake, then cool completely before frosting.
I am not sure which sounds better– the cupcake or the icing! I think together they would be wonderful and perfect for holiday celebrations!
These look great! I love eggnog, and don’t understand why people won’t even try it. It’s delish! I didn’t see anything about those beautiful golden stars. Are they edible? Do you have an affiliate link for them? I love them!
Yes! They are from Sprinkle Pop and they are totally edible. They are great sprinkles because you actually don’t even notice them when you are eating the cupcake – they don’t have a crunch like other sprinkles. I don’t have an affiliate link but if you just search “sprinkle pop stars” you should be able to find them!
These cupcakes look and sound amazing! They have all of the warm spices that I love. I like the idea of a survey like this too. There are so many amazing ideas in the community.
These cupcakes look so warm and delicious. They have all of those spices that are perfectly combined together!
Your gingerbread cupcakes are simply gorgeous!!!!!
Thank you!
I can smell these baking now! The eggnog butter cream is perfect with gingerbread. I always have extra eggnog during the holiday season, so definitely making these.
These are quite possibly the world’s most perfect cupcake!! Gingerbread holds a ver special place in my heart. I can’t wait to try these!
I love the holiday inspired flavor combination! The gold flakes on top are so festive and beautiful! Love it!
I love the combination of gingerbread and eggnog! These have to be the perfect Christmas cupcakes!
Hello! These look absolutely delicious and I can’t wait to make them! But I was wondering where you got that mini cooling tray? My girlfriend does some food photography for fun and her birthday is coming up and I know she would love to have that as a gift. I can’t find them anywhere, please help.
I found mine on Etsy! There are many really cool props on there. I did a quick search and this one looks exactly like mine: https://www.etsy.com/listing/616959343/metal-wire-grater-kitchen-utensil?ref=search_opfy-5&pro=1
This is seriously making me want to make cupcakes today! I know the deep molasses will make my house smell so good and Christmassy! and that eggnog frosting?// Holy moly! That is going to happen here at my house very soon!
Wow these cupcakes were amazing. So incredibly moist. I couldn’t make the eggnog icing so instead I made a cinnamon buttercream frosting with a couple tablespoons of cream cheese which complimented the cupcakes alot. Will totally make these for Thanksgiving 🙂
How could you adapt this to make it a cake?
You can double the recipe and bake it in regular cake pans.