One Pan Gingerbread Cupcakes

Decorated in pink icing for a special Valentine’s Day treat, these cupcakes have an intense ginger flavor, which is why we like them! It offsets the sweetness of the icing. Don’t skip the fair trade ingredients — look for the Wholesome Sweeteners molasses at your local grocery and check the labels in the spice aisle.

These cupcakes are a nice alternative to chocolate for the day that celebrates all things love (although we never need an excuse to eat fair trade chocolate!)

Make your own fair trade icing with confectioners sugar, butter, and a bit of milk. You can also buy ready-to-enjoy icing from Wholesome Sweeteners.

Makes 24 cupcakes (easy to halve the recipe and just make 12!) or one 9×13-inch cake.

Ingredients

• 8 T unsalted butter (1 stick) cut into chunks
• 1 cup water
• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 2/3 cup packed fair trade organic dark brown sugar
• 1 cup fair trade organic unsulfured molasses
• 2 large eggs at room temperature, lightly beaten
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp ground fair trade ginger
• 1 1/2 tsp ground fair trade cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground fair trade cloves
• 1/2 tsp ground fair trade nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp baking powder

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Use liners in your cupcake tins, or butter and flour the pan.

Bring water to a boil in a large saucepan – this will be the pan you use to make the whole recipe! Add baking soda and the water will foam up (just like in science class). Let stand for 5 minutes, then stir in butter until melted. Whisk in brown sugar and molasses. The mixture should be lukewarm; let cool for a few minutes if not. (You can also transfer this mixture to a bowl if you prefer). Whisk in eggs until just combined.

Measure flour, ground ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, salt, and baking powder into a fine-mesh strainer or sifter, and sift them over the wet ingredients. Stir together until just combined. The batter will be a bit lumpy.

Ladle the batter into the prepared cupcake liners and bake for 15-20 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the center of one comes out clean (or bake in pan for 30-35 mins.)  Let cool completely, and slather in fair trade icing or dust with confectioners’ sugar. Enjoy!

Adapted from Martha Stewart & Smitten Kitchen

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