Super soft, moist cupcakes with a perfect crumb and an amazingly festive flavor profile, filled with an eggnog pastry cream filling and a fluffy cream cheese frosting! These Gingerbread Cupcakes with Eggnog filling and Cream cheese frosting are PERFECT for the holidays!
Usually, around this time of year I’m frantically baking a gingerbread house. This year, Mr K is swamped with work so he can’t help me with decorating the house and going it alone is boring. So I ditched the gingerbread house and made these Gingerbread cupcakes with an Eggnog Filling and Cream Cheese Frosting instead! Mr K is more than willing to help eat these.
What’s special about these gingerbread cupcakes?
Soft, moist cupcakes spiced with ginger and gingerbread spices, filled with a sweet and creamy eggnog pastry cream, and then topped with a fluffy cream cheese frosting. As far as gingerbread cupcakes go, these are truly the best I’ve ever had!
I tested this particular recipe SIX times to perfect it and make sure it was fool-proof! Really. That’s how committed I was to these gingerbread cupcakes. I had a particular texture that I wanted for these gingerbread eggnog cupcakes and it took some trying to get there. But the result is super soft cupcakes with a perfect crumb and a great balance of flavor from the sweetness of brown sugar and molasses, to the spice and warmth of ginger, cinnamon, allspice and cloves. If you’re planning on making cupcakes for the holidays, you cannot go wrong with these moist, flavorful gingerbread eggnog cupcakes!
I was first thinking of an eggnog buttercream frosting, but then decided to keep the flavor of cream cheese frosting and add another level of texture and flavor with an eggnog pastry cream filling. It’s so good, you’ll be eating it straight with a spoon! 🙂
Super soft, moist cupcakes with a perfect crumb and a great balance of flavor and warming spices. Filled with a white chocolate and eggnog pastry cream, and topped with a fluffy, tangy cream cream cheese frosting!
I made these gingerbread cupcakes to use in these adorable Santa Claus cupcakes as well! Those cupcakes used a more stiff cream cheese frosting in order to be able to pipe that Santa Claus shaped topping. There’s a step-by-step video tutorial and printable there to help you nail that easy Santa Claus shaped frosting. 🙂
Cream cheese frosting for these gingerbread cupcakes
The frosting used for these gingerbread eggnog cupcakes however is more soft and fluffy. You also have the option of mixing the frosting with a little molasses before you pipe it so that your frosting has a beautiful gold ombre look, OR you can simply decorate them with some gold dust and mini gingerbread cookies on top. Either way, you’ll love these gingerbread cupcakes just for their robust, spicy, warming ginger flavor and that soft, moist, addictive texture!
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Ingredients:
Gingerbread Cupcakes
- 115 g unsalted butter melted. 1 stick / ½ cup
- 70 g brown sugar
- 100 g 3.5 oz molasses
- ¼ tsp kosher salt
- 2 eggs
- 1 yolk
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 200 g flour
- 2 tsp ginger
- 1 ½ tsp cinnamon
- ¼ allspice
- ¼ cloves
- ¼ nutmeg
- ⅔ cup milk
Eggnog Pastry Cream
- ½ cup white chocolate chips
- ¾ cup milk
- 2 egg yolks
- ½ tbsp corn flour corn starch
- ¼ tsp ground nutmeg
- ¼ tsp cinnamon
- ⅓ cup whipping cream cold and whipped
Cream Cheese Frosting
- 170 g 6 oz of unsalted butter, softened
- 225 g 8 oz of cream cheese, softened
- 680 g 1 ½ lbs of confectioner's sugar, sifted
- 2 tsp vanilla
- Pinch of salt
- 2 - 3 tbsp cream if needed
Instructions:
Gingerbread Cupcakes
- Preheat oven to 350°F / 180°C. Place the melted butter, salt, brown sugar and molasses in a bowl and whisk until thick, smooth and creamy.
- Add the eggs (one at a time), whisking well between each addition. Follow with the egg yolk and whisk it into the mix well. Whisk in the vanilla.
- In a separate bowl, sift the flour, baking powder, and the spices.
- Add the sifted dry ingredients to the wet ingredients in 3 additions, alternating with 2 additions of the milk. FOLD THEM INTO the batter - do not over beat.
- Line a regular cupcake tray with cupcake liners.
- Fill all 12 cupcake liners with the cake batter (about ⅔ - ¾ way up) and bake in preheated oven for 15 - 20 minutes, until the cupcake tops are slightly springy to the touch.
- Take the cupcakes out of the oven, and let them cool down completely.
Eggnog Pastry Cream
- Place the milk and white chocolate in a small saucepan and heat over medium heat to melt the chocolate. Stir frequently to make sure the chocolate melts.
- Whisk the egg yolks with the corn flour (corn starch) until smooth.
- Temper the egg yolks with a little (about ¼ cup) of the hot milk mix. Make sure to whisk the egg yolks consistently to avoid them from turning into scrambled eggs.
- Add the tempered egg yolks back into the rest of the hot milk mix and whisk to combine.
- Add the cinnamon and nutmeg and whisk the custard over medium heat to mix well.
- Whisk frequently while cooking the custard until it has thickened, and the mixture starts to break the surface with a “blop”.
- Remove the custard from the stove and pour it into a bowl. Cover it with plastic wrap (with the plastic wrap touching the surface to prevent a skin from forming), and let it cool down completely. This custard will be a very thick paste once it cools down.
- Once the custard has cooled, add half of the whipped cream into the eggnog custard and fold it in to combine. Add the rest of the cream and fold it in to mix well and distribute evenly.
- The pastry cream can be stored in a piping bag and refrigerated until needed.
Cream Cheese Frosting
- Place the butter and cream cheese in a stand mixer bowl and using a whisk attachment, whisk until the butter and cream cheese mix is light and fluffy.
- Add the salt and vanilla, and whip to combine.
- Add confectioner's sugar in batches and mix on low speed until well combined. Scrape the sides to make sure the frosting is mixed properly.
- Whip the frosting on medium-high speed until light, fluffy and creamy.
- If you prefer a softer frosting, add the cream and whip the frosting for another minute.
- Place the frosting in a large pastry bag with an open star tip (or any pastry tip you like).
Assembly
- Using a melon baller, carefully remove a small half sphere from the center of the cupcakes (see photo in blog post).
- Once all the cupcakes have a hollow center, fill it with eggnog pastry cream.
- Pipe the cream cheese frosting on top.
- Optional - drizzle some molasses on top, or sprinkle some cinnamon or gold dust on top, or decorate with mini gingerbread cookies. Enjoy!
“This website provides approximate nutrition information for convenience and as a courtesy only. Nutrition data is gathered primarily from the USDA Food Composition Database, whenever available, or otherwise other online calculators.”
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Geri says
Can I make, fill and frost the cupcakes a couple of days ahead of time and refrigerate them?
Dini says
Hi Geri
These cupcakes do last in the fridge for a few days, so it is possible. However, the frosting and the filling will harden in the fridge, so it will need to thawed out at room temperature before serving.
I hope that helps
Chaylene says
Loved this recipe for cupcakes! Would it work just as well to put the batter in cake pans for a layered cake? TIA 🙂
maurine says
hello! These look great and I’m making them for my Christmas eve party. I’ve run into a discrepancy, however. I’m converting to U.S. measurements.
The molasses amount is conflicting. 100g and 5 oz. are not the same measurements.
100g equals 3.5 oz (or 7 TBS); where 5 oz. equals 142g (or 10 TBS).
So which is the correct measurement to use?
Dini says
Hi Maurine
100 g is the correct amount. I think the 3.5 oz got edited to 5 oz by mistake and I missed it. Thank you so much for pointing it out!
Also 100g is 5 tbsp as 1 tbsp is about 20g. I just measured it with the molasses at home.
I actually made these gingerbread cupcakes last night too! 🙂
Thank you again and I hope you like these cupcakes as much as we do!
Tara martin says
Making these today. Just curious, though, where did you get those gorgeous little cookies on top? Have looked everywhere and can’t find any. Thanks!
Dini says
Hi Tara!
Those cookies are actually mini gingerbread palmiers that I made. I haven’t shared the recipe on the blog, as I just made them for these cupcakes. I used my puff pastry recipe here, but you can use store-bought too, and then liberally spread sugar mixed with gingerbread spices on top of the puff pastry. Then roll them up to a palmier shape and cut thin slices. They were baked in the oven until golden brown. I hope that helps!
Bqueen says
Where’s the eggnog for the eggnog frosting?
Dini says
Hi Bqueen, the frosting is a regular cream cheese frosting. Did you mean the eggnog pastry cream filling? I’m not using store-bought eggnog here, instead the eggnog filling is made from scratch – just without the alcohol. I hope that helps.
Cathy says
These look amazing! Do you think you can make in advance and freeze the cupcakes and fill and frost the day of the event?
Dini says
Hi Cathy,
Thank you! Yes, these cupcakes can be frozen and stored in an air-tight container/bag in the freezer. Then let them thaw to room temperature first, before you fill and frost on the day you need them. Hope you enjoy the cupcakes! 🙂
Hannah Abaffy says
Made these cupcakes last week and the filling was awesome I added a little more whipped cream because I used fresh nutmeg and it got a little overpowering in the pastry cream filling. the icing was also good, can’t go wrong with cream cheese it feels like. Thanks for a good idea!
Schroomer says
Note: I only made the cupcake part of the recipe as I had a guest with a dietary issue and used a non-dairy filling. This cupcake has a wonderful flavor and will be my new go-to for a gingerbread cupcake. I am curious why you melt the butter in step 1? Beating the ingredients with softened butter made for a lighter, slightly taller cupcake in the second batch I made. Thanks for the recipe.
Dini says
Hi Schroomer!
You can make this with softened butter, and yes it does result in a lighter cupcake because of the added air when you cream the butter and sugar 🙂 However, I melted the butter to make it easier for me to mix it all in one go (no creaming necessary!), plus I wanted a slightly fudgier cupcake! The taste thankfully doesn’t change whichever way you make these cupcakes! But I am SO glad that you liked this, because it’s one of my favorite cupcakes too! Thank you!
Lynn | The Road to Honey says
Aww. It’s too bad you didn’t get to carry on the yearly tradition of making gingerbread houses. I wanted to make my own this year but time escaped me and I had to abandon ship on this idea. But these gingerbread cuppies are a terrific substitute. And they sound so lovely paired up with that eggnog pastry cream and cream cheese frosting. P.S. Happy New Year!!!
cakespy says
These look…just incredible. YUM YUM YUM. Love the idea of gingerbread and eggnog together.
Meriem @ Confessions of a Confectionista says
These are absolutely perfect for the holidays! Love the flavors!