So as you can probably tell, we’re big into the pumpkin stuff right now!
And since I made a vegan pumpkin cake, I thought why not vegan pumpkin cupcakes too!
And so happy I did. These pumpkin cupcakes are super awesome, they’re easy, crazy delicious, and topped with a pumpkin spice frosting, a sprinkle of pumpkin pie spice and crushed pecans!
The pairing of pecans with pumpkin things is a winner by the way.
Some nuts just go best with things, like walnuts go perfectly with banana bread muffins and carrot cake cupcakes, pecans go best with pumkin cupcakes and vegan pumpkin muffins.
Pumpkin spice frosting is too easy, it’s just a case of adding some pumpkin pie spice to your frosting. It creates a beautiful flavor and the velvety smooth frosting pipes beautifully onto these cupcakes.
These cupcakes rise very high! They’re beautifully tall. So for this reason I prefer to use muffin liners rather than cupcake liners because they tend to be higher on the sides and support these extra tall cupcakes best.
You can make your own pumpkin pie spice to use in this recipe! Or use a store-bought option, but if you have any difficulty buying it where you are, then just use our recipe for a homemade version.
Another tip would be to weigh your pumpkin purée and your flour for the best, most accurate results. You can use canned or fresh pumpkin purée. Canned is easiest, but if you want to use fresh pumpkin purée, that works great too!
To make your own you just bake peeled and cubed pumpkin in the oven for around 30 minutes at 350°F (I’ve also done it at 390°F). Don’t add any oil or spices, just bake it plain. When it’s soft and cooked, then either mash it with a potato masher or put it into the food processor and purée it. If it’s a little ‘wet’ then stand it in a strainer so any excess water can drain off.
You will love these gorgeous vegan pumpkin cupcakes, they are:
- Tall
- Rich
- Moist
- Pumpkin flavored
- Easy
- Topped with a pumpkin spice frosting
- Beautifully colorful
Keep them covered at room temperature where they will stay fresh for a few days or covered in the fridge where they will last for up to a week.
Thoughts on these beautiful vegan pumpkin cupcakes? Post them in the comments. Always love to hear from you. And please rate the recipe too, this is really so helpful.
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Vegan Pumpkin Cupcakes with Pumpkin Spice Frosting
- Prep Time: 20 mins
- Cook Time: 25 mins
- Total Time: 45 minutes
- Yield: 12
Print Recipe
Pin RecipeDescription
Rich, moist and tall vegan pumpkin cupcakes topped with a velvety pumpkin spice frosting and crushed pecans. Beautifully colorful and fall inspired.
Ingredients
For the Pumpkin Cupcakes:
- 2 cups (250g) All Purpose Flour
- 1 cup (200g) Brown Sugar
- 1/2 cup (100g) White Sugar
- 1 tsp Baking Soda
- 1 tsp Baking Powder
- 1/2 tsp Salt
- 3 and 1/2 tsp Pumpkin Pie Spice (homemade or store bought)
- 1 and 1/2 cups (337g) Pumpkin Puree (not pumpkin pie filling)
- 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 1/4 cup (60ml) Extra Virgin Olive Oil (or other vegetable oil)
- 1 Tbsp Apple Cider Vinegar
- 1 Flax Egg
For the Pumpkin Spice Frosting:
- 3 cups (375g) Powdered (Confectioners) Sugar
- 1/3 cup (75g) Vegan Butter
- 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 1 tsp Pumpkin Pie Spice
- 2 Tbsp Soy Milk (or other non-dairy milk)
For Decorating:
- Sprinkle of Pumpkin Pie Spice
- Crushed Pecans
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C).
- Sift the flour into a mixing bowl and add the brown and white sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt and pumpkin pie spice.
- Prepare your flax egg by mixing 1 Tbsp of ground flax seed meal with 3 Tbsp Hot Water and allowing to sit for a minute to become gloopy.
- Add the pumpkin puree, vanilla, olive oil and apple cider vinegar to the mixing bowl.
- Add the flax egg and mix in. Your batter will be thick.
- Line a cupcake tray with muffin liners. Divide the batter evenly between them.
- Bake for 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of one of the cupcakes comes out clean.
- Transfer to a wire cooling rack and allow to cool completely before frosting.
- Prepare your frosting by adding the powdered sugar, vegan butter, vanilla and soy milk to the bowl of an electric mixer. Start on slow speed and gradually increase the speed until thick and smooth. If your frosting is too thin, add in more powdered sugar, if it’s too thick, add in more non-dairy milk. When you reach the right consistency add in the pumpkin pie spice and mix in on slow until just mixed.
- Pipe the frosting onto the cupcakes and decorate with pumpkin pie spice and crushed pecan nuts.
Notes
*Recipe adapted from our Vegan Pumpkin Cake.
*Nutrition information is based on 1 cupcake (of 12) with frosting.
- Category: Dessert, Cakes
- Cuisine: Vegan
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 Cupcake (of 12)
- Calories: 379
- Sodium: 292mg
- Fat: 8g
- Saturated Fat: 1.2g
- Carbohydrates: 75.2g
- Fiber: 1.5g
- Protein: 2.6g
Keywords: vegan pumpkin cupcakes
is it absolutely critical to add apple cider vinegar? can i sub for regular vinegar or omit entirely? thoughts appreciated.
Hi Elena, it reacts with the baking soda and gives the cupcakes rise, so it is very important to use it. You can use a different vinegar though.
I made these to bring to dinner with my sister in-law who is vegan, and she loved them! My husband loved them too, they’re probably one of the best cupcakes (vegan or not) that I’ve made. Thanks so much for your recipe!
★★★★★
Wonderful! So happy to hear that Heather. Thanks for the awesome review. 🙂
Made these for my daughter’s fall dance. They never have vegan treats so I wanted to make sure to bring something she could eat. AMAZING ! Perfectly sweet ! I doubled the recipe and piped the frosting. I didn’t double the icing recipe, only the cupcake recipe, and it was enough frosting to cover 38 cupcakes (which is what I got after doubling the recipe).
★★★★★
So happy to hear they were a success! Thanks for the great review Narissa! 🙂
These cupcakes were a big hit with my company and my 2 little granddaughters!
★★★★★
Wonderful! Thanks for the review Kim! 🙂
mine came out more like muffins, not so much cakey. Do you happen to know why that would be? But honestly they taste great so no complaints 🙂
Do you mean a little dense? If so, be sure to weigh the flour and the pumpkin next time, it could be a case of a little too much flour or too little pumpkin.
I just made these and they were so easy and so delicious!! I was worried at first about the thickness of the batter (as it originally felt like cookie dough), but it came together nicely after adding the water/flax. I added some chocolate chips into this as well. Yum!
This is more of a question rather than a comment. I’m not vegan, but I bake for groups of people, including vegans, some are stricter than others when it comes to sugar. I was wondering if for the brown sugar you used was the usual vegan brown sugar or the brown sugar that non vegans use, like the regular domino sugar?
Thank you so much!
We don’t have a sugar issue in the country we’re in, our sugar is totally vegan and has been for 30 years. I believe it is just in the USA where some sugar companies still use outdated methods to refine the sugar. In that case of course it would be best to find a company that is more up to date in their methods, but that is of course a personal choice and not one that we would dictate to anyone.
Hi! Would shortening work for the frosting? I usually use Spectrum Organic non-hydrogenated. For some reason my vegan butter usually doesn’t hold up well on the cupcakes, even though I use Earth Balance, which it seems like everyone else does!
Hi Dana, I don’t know about shortening, I haven’t ever used it, so I can’t advise about whether or not it would work. As far as the frosting not usually holding up with Earth Balance, a good thing to try would be to use less non-dairy milk, add it in VERY slowly and you might be able to use less of it. I’m not using Earth Balance at the moment and didn’t with these cupcakes (though I have used Earth Balance before) and there can be variance of water content between different vegan buttery spreads which could cause it to be too runny. All the best! 🙂
These are awesome. My family enjoyed them
★★★★★
Fantastic! So glad to hear! 🙂
Delicious!!!! I used Neat Egg, followed recipe exactly. Except sprinkled pumpkin spice on top of frosting since I wasn’t using pecans due to nut allergy. These are really moist and the frosting is perfect. I had to bake them 5 extra minutes to total 30 minutes. They are tall, put heaping 1/4 cup in each muffin cup. Had a little dough left over and some icing left over. My house smells amazing! Learned how to make pumpkin pie spice easily on another recipe. Didn’t have ginger so I used 3 drops ginger essential oil which is digestible to cake mixture.. I’m giving them to my students after their Midterm exam tomorrow. Do you think these would freeze well?
★★★★★
Hi Christine! That sounds awesome, so happy they were a success! Yes, I think they will freeze well! 🙂
Thanks! I made double batch, cake batter fit in my largest mixing bowl and I mixed it by hand. Only made single batches of frosting, no way 6 cups of confectioners sugar wouldn’t fly out of my stand up mixer. ? I’ve been vegetarian for many years, converted to vegan l1 yr and half ago, still honing my vegan baking thank you so much for this recipe ! ? I’m going to make more and freeze for holidays.
Just made these and they are yummy. Although I made my own pumpkin puree by roasting the pumpkin and the puree was quite thick so the cake mix was so dry I added some almond milk…have you ever needed to add more liquid? What consistency should the mix be? Thank you
★★★★
The batter is supposed to be thick. I haven’t needed to add extra liquid, but if you did and your end result cupcakes weren’t overly moist then you probably got it exactly right!
Innovative, creative and delicious
★★★★★
Hello there!
I recently found your blog by doing a search on dairy free foods.
I signed up for your newsletter and this popped in my email account today! My son wanted me to make it immediately! I have a question though, do you think it would be okay to use a regular chicken egg in this? I ask because my son isn’t actually vegan, but he is dairy free, as he has a severe allergies to dairy. If not, I’ll make it exactly as the recipe calls. Thank you for your time and posting this recipe! My son is crazy for pumpkin!
Hi Tammy! In theory it should be fine! A Flax egg is a 1:1 replacement for a chicken egg in cakes – however I haven’t tested it that way as I have only made this as vegan. All the best!
Hello Again!
I made the cupcakes and frosting and it was so delicious! Thank you so much for sharing the recipe. Also, I did use an egg, but it was a lot thicker than what your photos show yours came out like, but the taste was divine!
Great Tammy! So happy to hear it came out well! 🙂
I just realized that I used my real name. OOPS. I don’t do that online. I go by Tammy Chrzan on the net. I’m sorry for the confusion! If it’s okay, I would like to add your recipe to my blog. I will give you credit.
Sure, that would be awesome – look forward to seeing it! We have guidelines on our contact page for how to do this. 🙂
Yeah! Once again these look perfect! I really wish I wasn’t an awful baker! LOL