Oh so simple, and oh so delicious.

In the past week or so, I realized that my year-to-date pumpkin intake is severely below goal this year.  It dawned on me that I have only enjoyed ONE Starbucks pumpkin latte this year and I’ve only made pumpkin cookies ONCE.  Sad!  The very next day, I received an email newsletter from Hungry Girl that was ALL ABOUT PUMPKIN.  Fate?  I’m thinking yes.

Do any of you get the Hungry Girl email newsletter?  I am a big big fan.  She always has simple healthy recipe ideas and offers up tips on healthier options to make at chain restaurants.  She’s also coming out with a show in January, which I’m pretty pumped about.

One of the pumpkin recipes in the newsletter that caught my eye was this recipe for Caramel Pudding Pumpkin Cupcakes.  I truly am a baker at heart.  Yes, I love to cook, but if I had to choose I’d pick baking any day.  One of the reasons I rarely bake is that I possess little to no will power against baked goods.  I’m the girl who has to try a “little bite” of each baked good at family get togethers… only to end up eating the sugar equivalent of 7 king size snickers bars…  For those of you who were Sex and the City watchers, I could totally relate to the episode where Miranda ate chocolate cake from the trash can.  Like I said.  Little to no willpower.  So rather than suscept myself to sugar induced comas, I avoid baking. 

Unless of course I have plenty of people to pawn my wares off on…  And when all else fails, I scale it down.  I mean way down.  I’ve been known to make a solitary no-bake cookie.  Talk about proactive measures!

When I got to baking these pumpkin cupcakes, I decided to cut the recipe down to 3 cupcakes.  Come on.  You have to give yourself a little wiggle room  

I assembled the ingredients for 3 cupcakes in a large bowl (making a few minor tweaks from HG’s recipe):

• 1/2 cup Better Crocker moist yellow cake mix
• 1/4 cup canned pure pumpkin
• 1 egg white
• 1.5 tsp Smuckers sugar free breakfast syrup
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 packet Truvia
• dash of salt

I whisked everything together with a fork for a good two minutes:

Then divided evenly into 3 muffin tins, which I popped into a 350 degree oven for 12 minutes…. and VOILA! 

Little bits of joy:

I’m so proud  

While the cupcakes cooled, I got to work on the caramel icing.  For three cupcakes, I only needed 1 caramel candy (the little cube caramels you can find individually wrapped in the bulk candy section of the grocery store) and 1 tsp Almond Breeze Vanilla Unsweetened Almond Milk.  I put both of the icing ingredients into a bowl and popped into the microwave on 50% heat for 1 minute, then stirred, and repeated for another minute.

Then I just drizzled the caramel goodness over top of the three cupcakes:

I had one of these little guys with my evening cup of Earl Grey tea.  It reminded me of the pumpkin muffies you can get at Panera (you know, the ones that are dusted with powdered sugar?).  These cupcakes really are a cross between a muffie and a cupcake….  A muffcake, if you will  

Not only were they super easy and scrumptious, but they made my kitchen smell absolutely heavenly.

Stats on 1 Mini Pumpkin Muffcake (as prepared by Fervent Foodie):  106 calories, 23g carbs, 1g fat, 2g protein, 1g fiber

Mini Pumpkin Muffcakes Ingredients List (makes 3)

• 1/2 cup Better Crocker moist yellow cake mix
• 1/4 cup canned pure pumpkin
• 1 egg white
• 1.5 tsp Smuckers sugar free breakfast syrup
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 packet Truvia
• dash of salt
• 1 caramel candy
• 1 tsp Almond Breeze Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk