Pumpkin Pie

So I'm writing about this after the fact. I've decided to use my coworkers as my guinea pigs to test out different cupcake flavors. Yesterday, I attempted to make Pumpkin Pie cupcakes. They ended up being Spice cupcakes with a graham cracker middle. I assumed that buying pumpkin pie spice would give a pumpkin flavor. I was wrong. Some people said it tasted like pumpkin but I didn't taste it. The overall consensus is that they were very good regardless.

To make them, I started with a white cake mix. I blended in a good amount of pumpkin pie spice, poured the mix into the cups and threw them in the oven. The box says 18-22 minutes in the oven at 350 degrees. The first batch went in for somewhere around 13. The second went the full 18, but they both turned out fully cooked. Once they were done cooking, I let them cool. I was on a tight deadline (1.5 hours) so I stuck them in the fridge for about 5 minutes to flash cool them. Once cooled, I took a paring knife and cut out a core. I scraped out some of the insides and filled them with a mixture of crushed graham crackers and whipped cream. I then put the top back on and voila!

It also turns out that my cupcakes were a little tough according to my supervisor, Judi.  She said that this is caused by mixing for too long, which I admit I did. I mixed in the spice, decided it wasn't enough and repeated two more times. I even had to add 1/8 cup more water just to make it a little runnier since it wasn't emptying into the cups well enough.

At the end of the night, another supervisor, Carla, gave me my next idea: Chocolate covered cherry cupcakes with an amaretto icing. I did some research on how to make chocolate cupcakes from scratch instead of from a box and I got an idea to revise the recipe. Until next time....