This recipe for pumpkin cupcakes has a decadent layer of pumpkin cream cheese frosting

If your kitchen isn’t smelling like pumpkin and ginger and cinnamon right now … girl, we need to chat. October has almost come and gone, and these are prime fall baking days. Yes, there are emails to send and clothes to fold and leaves to rake, but if you don’t take time out of your schedule to stop and make all the pumpkin-based goodies, you’re missing half the fun of the season!

So, no more procrastinating: This recipe for Pumpkin Cupcakes with Pumpkin Cream Cheese Frosting is so simple and so fun to make, and they are perfect for the neighborhood harvest festival or your kid’s Halloween party. Or, keep them all to yourself and enjoy them with a cup of coffee after a long day at the apple orchard or after spending a day in the yard hanging up your spooky Halloween decorations.

Pumpkin Cupcakes with Pumpkin Cream Cheese Frosting

Gather your ingredients, put “Hocus Pocus 2” on in the background and get in touch with your inner kitchen witch because these cupcakes are so good and so fall-appropriate they really are going to make feel you have superpowers.

To make the cupcakes, you will need a can of pure pumpkin, some pumpkin pie spice and a box of Betty Crocker Golden Vanilla Super Moist Cake Mix. If you don’t have pumpkin pie spice, you can make your own with a mixture of ground cinnamon, ground ginger, nutmeg, ground allspice and ground cloves. The Pioneer Woman has a good recipe for making your own homemade pumpkin pie spice.

After you bake the pumpkin cupcakes, it’s time to let them cool and make the pumpkin cream cheese frosting. For this, you’ll need cream cheese, pumpkin puree, vanilla, cinnamon, brown sugar and more of that pumpkin pie spice.

You can find the full recipe for these Pumpkin Cupcakes with Pumpkin Cream Cheese Frosting from SkinnyTaste, where writer Gina Homolka claims they only pack 121 calories per finished cupcake!

If you like a little crunch to finish, you can also sprinkle turbinado sugar on top of the frosted cupcakes. Or decorate with mini pumpkins, fall sprinkles (like ones in the shapes of leaves), or simply a dusting of pearlized gold sprinkles.