Chocolate Pumpkin Cupcakes with Brown Sugar Cinnamon Buttercream

There is no better time to make cupcakes than when you have no reason! I had ALL the ingredients for these so why not??

2+ dozen cupcakes... I hope I find some people at work to share these with....

The frosting was very sweet so I piped little stars instead of a big mass of sweetness.

I tried another pastry bag tip.

And also, when there is no occasion I can mix and match my odds and ends. I had blue cupcake liners, white, and light pink.

The pumpkin and the greek yogurt made these very moist. There is a hint of pumpkin, but it's mostly chocolate goodness. The buttercream is a bit grainy from the brown sugar but I think I like it. I strayed away from the recipe by NOT using shortening. I've had enough shortening in the last month, thank you very much. I am now a firm believer that buttercream should have butter and not shortening.

I just used another 1/4 cup of butter.

My husband is so sweet. He tells me my cupcakes (these and last weekend's) are better than a bakery's! We've tried several cupcakes from cupcake specialty bakeries but they've been disappointing. Do they not find the BEST cake recipe and make them fresh? Doesn't seem like...

Me = CUPCAKE SNOB

Click here for the stolen recipe for Chocolate Pumpkin Cupcakes.

Click here for the stolen recipe for Brown Sugar Cinnamon Buttercream. (Remember, I didn't use the shortening. It worked just fine.)