When you need festive cupcakes for a celebration, this recipe for sugar and spice cupcakes brings just the right mixture of moisture, sweetness, & spice.

I’m in a season of challenging myself to learn new things. Last summer, I decided that I was going to embark on the journey of sourdough. I got a dried sourdough starter and attempted to rehydrate it and have my own starter and it was just awful. It was a failure. I could not achieve the hydration I needed in that sourdough to keep it going. 

So…I decided to make my own starter, which was easier than I expected, and I haven’t looked back since. I’ve made multiple loaves of bread at this point, trying different recipes. I’ve made sourdough bagels, coffee cake, and cinnamon rolls. My sourdough game is thriving and I can’t be stopped. 

But I’m not stopping there, oh no! I’ve long been displeased with my frosting attempts on cakes and cupcakes. It’s high time I figure this thing out and the only way to do that is to practice. 

Hello, sugar and spice cupcakes! This recipe originally appeared ten years ago! I originally made these to celebrate Christian’s first birthday (so, yeah, he’s 11 now…!). I wanted to make him a smash cake using little cans from tuna fish – needless to say that didn’t go well and I had to come up with a plan B. That being said, I ended up making him a cute little smash cake and these cupcakes and they went over really well (if memory serves). 

I’ve been working here and there for the last few years to update some old recipes from the blog and it was time for these cupcakes to get a facelift. The pictures were never bad, but Josh’s photography has really matured (Editor’s note: at least when it comes to taking pictures of, you know, things that don’t move or have to smile…), and we’re really going for consistent, Pinterest-friendly posts. This also gave me another opportunity to work on my cupcake frosting skills – I need to keep working on it, but I am getting better, and I’m going to keep on working on it until I feel like I can do it with ease. 

I hope you’re ready…this blog has the potential to either become a strictly sourdough blog or a cupcake blog! Haha!

These cupcakes are kind of perfect because I think a lot of people like the idea of a cupcake until they bite into it and get an instant cavity from all of the sugar. Here, we’re bringing sugar and spice together into one perfect marriage. The cupcake has some sweetness from the cake mix and pudding mix, of course, but that is tempered with the earthiness of the allspice and cinnamon. It just tones down the sweetness enough for a fun complexity of flavor. And of course, frosting is usually sweet – and this is a buttercream frosting so there is a fair amount of powdered sugar in it – however, the spices balance that perfectly. It is honest-to-goodness frosting that will not make you feel like you need to head to the dentist immediately! 

When I originally made these cupcakes, they were winter-themed because my son was born just a few days before Christmas. This time, I’ve turned these cuties into little Valentine’s Day cuties! Of course, you could bake these for any occasion that you wanted to. Winter was a very fun theme. Christmas would be appropriate. Easter would be adorable. Or just make them because they’re delicious and you’re craving a cupcake! How can you really go wrong? 

I will say that the kiddos will love these, though. Ruby and I baked these together and then we brought them to our church’s “Valentines-themed” family fun night, and they were a hit! So, yeah, these would be great to bake with your kids or for your kids for Valentine’s Day.