Gingerbread Cupcakes with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting

Fluffy and delicious  homemade Gingerbread Cupcakes filled with the beautiful warm spices of the Holiday Season, topped with a silky-smooth Maple Cream Cheese Frosting.  Holiday baking doesn't get any better than this!

You're going to love these soft and moist Gingerbread Cupcakes!  They've been on repeat leading into the holiday season -we just can't get enough of them!  Gingerbread is such holiday staple around here, so check out my other gingerbread recipes, including my delicious Gingerbread Truffles and warm and spicy Speculaas Sugar Cookies (they're seriously like the ultimate sugar cookie imo)

My Gingerbread Cupcakes are made with buttermilk, so they're super-soft and fluffy, and the addition of golden syrup makes them extra warm and Christmassy.  Maple Cream Cheese Frosting is the perfect topping for these cupcakes, as it really brings home those Christmas flavours.  It's the same frosting I use in my filled Snickerdoodles and it's to die for!

Why You Will Love This Recipe

• The cupcakes are super soft and fluffy
• The recipe makes 8, but you can easily double it for a crowd
• You can top them with little Gingerbread Men to make them super festive
• The combination of Gingerbread spices with the Maple frosting is next level
• You can make it just using a handheld electric mixer

Ingredients

For the Cupcakes

• Unsalted butter
• Egg
• Vanilla extract
• Buttermilk
• Golden syrup
• Brown sugar
• Plain flour:  (all purpose flour)
• Bicarbonate soda
• Baking soda
• Ginger
• Cinnamon
• Nutmeg
• Allspice

For the Frosting

• Cream cheese
• Butter
• Pure icing sugar
• Pure maple syrup
• Optional mini gingerbread men

Substitutions and Additions

• Golden syrup:  if you can't get golden syrup, swap it for an equal amount of treacle
• Spices:  if you've tried (or want to try!) my Speculaas Spice Mix, simply swap the spices for 2 teaspoons of Speculaas Mix
• Maple Cream Cheese Frosting:  you can top these Gingerbread cupcakes with your favourite frosting instead and sprinkle them with cinnamon.  They're delicious with a cinnamon cream cheese frosting as well!
• Plain flour:  for the ultimate in soft cupcakes, you can use cake flour instead

Step by Step Instructions

• Line a cupcake pan with 8 cupcake liners
• Pre heat your oven to 180 (350)
• In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients (excluding sugar) and set aside
• In a medium mixing bowl, mix the butter and sugar on medium speed until creamy.  You can do this with an electric hand-held mixer, or use a stand mixer with a paddle attachment (I use a hand mixer)
• Add the egg and mix in by hand or with a mixer on low speed, then mix through the vanilla and golden syrup
• Add half of the flour mixture and fold through, followed by half of the buttermilk.  Repeat with the remaining half and mix until just combined
• Using a large ice cream scoop, scoop the cupcake batter into the 8 papers
• Bake for 21-22 minutes, until the tops spring back when touched (you can also insert a cake tester or skewer to make sure)
• Allow to cool in the pan before moving them to a wire rack to cool completely
• Prepare the Maple Cream Cheese Frosting, then pop it into a piping bag fitted with a star piping tip and pipe it onto the cooled cupcakes, then sprinkle with a little cinnamon
• Pop a little gingerbread man into the frosting for fun

Tips and Tricks

• As with most cake recipes, the dry ingredients should be only just mixed in, to avoid a heavy (over mixed) cake
• I bake my cupcakes in a convention oven.   If you are baking with a fan, reduce the temperature to 160 Celsius or 320 Fahrenheit
• For the frosting, I always use pure maple syrup, as it is far superior to maple-flavoured syrup!

Serving Suggestions

• Christmas Dessert:  as a part of your Christmas dessert table, or with a cup of tea and the end of the day
• Afternoon Tea:  to get you into the holiday mood
• As a Gingerbread Cake:  try baking this recipe in a small loaf pan and reduce the frosting by half
• Mini Cupcakes:  make these are gorgeous little teatime treats and turn them into mini cupcakes -just adjust the bake time accordingly

Storage

• Room temperature: in cooler weather, they are fine stored at room temperature for a couple of days
• Refrigerate:  because of the cream cheese in the frosting, these are better kept in the fridge, in an airtight container for up to 3 days
• Freezer:  in an airtight container, they will last 3 months (either plain or frosted)

If you try this recipe, I'd love it if you could  take a minute to leave a rating or review -it helps to get my recipes seen and for me to keep sharing them with you.