Today I'm treating you to another fabulous cupcake idea from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes: 175 Inspired Ideas for Everyone's Favorite Treat. I can't say it enough how much I love this book. It's full of the cutest ideas and plenty of tasty cupcake recipes too. I especially love the holiday ideas like this one.
December's MS: Cupcakes Club choice, from Kayte of Grandma's Kitchen Table, was gingerbread cupcakes (p. 246, for those who have the book).
I'm not a big fan of gingerbread cookies, as in the rolled-out ones usually cut into the shape of gingerbread men -- I find that they're often dry, hard, and too strongly flavored, as if their purpose is more for decoration than eating.
I do like chocolate chip gingerbread drop cookies and ginger molasses cookies though, so I figured I'd give these cupcakes a shot and hoped they would have a less intense gingerbread flavor and be more moist than the cutout cookies. Luckily, they did turn out moist and had a pleasant gingery taste, and I'd definitely make them again any day.
I halved the recipe and, as is typical for me, made minis. We had the option of making the gingerbread cookie cutouts that were part of the recipe or decorating these cupcakes some other way. Because I usually don't like the cookies, I skipped those and just made the fluffy vanilla frosting. I piped it on the mini cupcakes, trying a few different looks until I found the one I liked.
And then I decorated them with little gingerbread men sprinkles.
These would be the perfect dessert to bring to a holiday party!