Maple Orange Gingerbread Cupcakes

We had a family Cupcake Wars a couple months ago.  It was super fun!  We had a list of ingredients and we had to use at least two of them.  We even had un-biased judges (they didn't know any of us), one of who was a personal chef!  They judged on appearance, creativity of ingredients and taste.  These little babies won first place!  These are definitely not quick and easy like most of my meals, plan to spend some time in the kitchen.  Enjoy!

Cupcakes

1 3/4 Cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons fresh ginger

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon cloves

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon allspice

1 teaspoon cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt 

3/4 Cup molasses (or less)

3/4 Cup sugar

8 Tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled

1 large egg, room temperature

1 Cup Buttermilk, room temperature

Zest from one orange 

Juice from one orange (but save the other orange for the frosting)

1.  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2.  Whisk the flour spices, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt together in a medium bowl and set aside.

3.  Squeeze the juice from two oranges into a 1 or 2-cup measure and then add molasses until it fills up to 3/4 Cup.  Beat mixture together with the sugar and melted butter in a large bowl with an electric mixer on low speed until combined.  Then beat in the egg until incorporated.

4. Add the flour mixture and beat until the batter is smooth and thick.

5. Pour the batter into greased muffin cups and cook for about 20-30 minutes until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean.

Frosting

The frosting recipe was an adaptation from my Grandma's Heavenly Frosting recipe, which you can find here.  There are two modifications to this recipe for these cupcakes.  In addition to the ingredients in the original recipe, you'll need:

1 Orange

Mapelline (maple extract)

1.  Use a 1 or 2-cup measure and squeeze in the juice of one orange (first remove the zest in long strands for the topping, if desired). Then fill it up to 1 cup with milk.  Use this mixture in place of the plain milk in the recipe.

2.  Add mapelline in place of the vanilla.

Topping

The toppings are certainly not necessary, but it was a fun addition to these cupcakes.  We candied ginger and orange zest.  You can find instructions for that all over google.  We also added pomegranate seeds for color and crunch.