Pumpkin spice cupcakes

October means no more summer which makes me a little sad because I love the warm weather but its the start of the baking season which makes me happy. Even though I firmly believe baking season is year round. All the yummy fall flavors like apple, pumpkin, cranberry, spices etc. inspire many delicious baked goodies I enjoy to make and eat!! So I jumped on the pumpkin cupcake bandwagon first. It seems to be very popular right now
I started with a spice cake base for the cake and added in canned pureed pumpkin, pumpkin pie spice and apple sauce instead of oil. It was dense, moist and smelled amazing

I have been into doing filled cupcakes lately so a friend of a friend gave me her pumpkin fluff recipe which I found out was my friend's recipe after all. Confused? ha ha
Its a mixture of pumpkin puree, cream cheese, frozen whipped topping and more pumpkin pie spice. I wanted to sit down with the bowl and a spoon, forget the cupcakes. ha. No seriously this stuff is to die for. Probably really good with graham crackers or ginger snaps

I used my Wilton Bismark tip to fill. I overfilled some since some were cracking on top -oops. Nothing a big glob of frosting wont fix!

Topped off with super yummy cream cheese frosting, I do believe that any kind of spice cupcake and cream cheese frosting go very well together

A sprinkling of cinnamon and a mellowcreme pumpkin to finish it off

I forgot I had this super cute pumpkin plate so I took this pic at last minute. I don't even remember where I got it from! But perfect to display my pumpkin spice cupakes