Mini Ginger Cupcakes

There is nothing like the bite of ginger to get you going in the morning...and who is it that said a girl can't have a cupcake for breakfast? Nobody (I dare you to say otherwise!). 

I am a member of a fabulous moms group here in New York that meets weekly on the UWS of Manhattan, and we alternate bringing in snacks for our morning get-togethers. This week was my group's week to bring the goods, so I decided to contribute these ginger cupcakes. Wait, don't be fooled! Full disclosure: They are not fully from scratch, I cheated.  As a mother to an 18-month old, sometimes I just don't have (uninterrupted) time in the kitchen. I took some tips from the Hello Cupcake book, and combined it with some ideas in the December issue of Real Simple. Voila, here is the recipe for these delicious little (breakfast! if you want) treats:

Mini Ginger Cupcakes

1 18.25 oz box of white cake mix (gasp!)

1/2 cup milk

1/3 cup canola oil

1/2 cup molasses

4 eggs

2 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp cinnamon 

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

Cream cheese icing (I used canned as a time saver, but you could make your own as well)

Candied ginger, for garnish

Preheat oven to 350 deg F. Grease 2 mini muffin pans. (you can also use mini cupcake wrappers)

Combine the cake mix and spices well in a stand mixer, then add the milk, oil, molasses and eggs and mix until well blended. (this process can easily be done with a hand mixer as well)

Spoon 1 tablespoon of batter into each of the 12 mini cupcake molds and bake 10 minutes, or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. The batter makes about 6 dozen minis, so you'll need to continue to take the cooked muffins out of the pan and place on a cooling rack, cool the pan under tap water, dry and re-fill with batter.

Once the minis are completely cool, fill a piping bag with the icing and use whichever tip you'd like to place a small dollop of icing on the top of each cupcake.  I used a star tip on half and no tip (essentially a large circle) for the other half. Finely chop the candied ginger and sprinkle on top for garnish.