One of my co-workers had a birthday recently, and I brought these gingerbread cupcakes with cream cheese frosting for our class to enjoy in her honor.

From allrecipes: Gingerbread Cupcake Recipe

INGREDIENTS

• 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup unsulfured molasses
• 1 egg
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon Dutch process cocoa powder
• 1 1/4 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 cup hot milk
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Butter or line with paper liners a 12-cup muffin tin.
2. Cream 5 tablespoons of the butter with the white sugar. Add the molasses and the egg and egg yolk.
3. Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg and salt. Dissolve the baking soda in the hot milk. Add the flour mixture to the creamed mixture and stir until just combined. Stir in the hot milk mixture. Pour the batter evenly into the prepared tin.
4. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 20 minutes or until slightly springy to the touch. Allow to cool a few minutes in the pan and remove to a rack to cool.

Then, as several commenters on the recipe suggested, I made the frosting by whipping 8 oz. of cream cheese with 2 cups of confectioner’s sugar. I topped them with chocolate chips so they wouldn’t look so plain.

The kids really liked them, and some of them exclaimed, “Gingerbread! My favorite!” I was surprised that they had had gingerbread before, and the ones who hadn’t enjoyed them.

The husband also gave these a thumbs-up rating. At first he wasn’t sure, because they weren’t made of chocolate, but as he kept eating them, he decided, “They are really good and taste fall-y.”