Today is my husband’s birthday. His birthday marks my favorite time of year for a couple reasons: 1. It’s the time of year when we the difference in our age is only one year instead of two (until we get back around to May!) and 2. it’s always the first sign for me that fall is just around the bend! So with that in mind…

I’m jumping the gun a little on the fall flavors and combining one of my favorite things and one of my husbands favorite things for his birthday treat: PUMPKIN ALE CUPCAKES! (Yes, you CAN except a ton of pumpkin and apple flavors in the blog over the next three months)

My husband’s birthday gift… he loved it. Hopefully he will be willing to share a few sips!

OK, so this recipe definitely uses canned pumpkin. most of the recipes I plan to use pumpkin for do. I’d feel like i was cheating but I’ve actually cooked pumpkin before and I can’t taste that much of a difference. Plus, it’s still WAY too hot to do unnecessary additional heating of the kitchen. In the spirit of this month’s theme (more on this next post), I got a little creative with the recipe to use what we already had in the pantry instead of going out to the grocery store for additional ingredients (not the first time this has happened, but perhaps the most purposeful!) I also played around because most pumpkin recipes around the internet don’t actually have enough pumpkin flavor for me so I ended up putting about twice as much as most recipes suggested in both the batter and the frosting.

note how sloppy the cupcake tin is.. this is called frantically pouring batter while your toddler tries to get into the oven… but they still came out pretty well!

This worked GREAT for the batter but made the frosting a little runny since the pumpkin puree has a lot of liquid in it. I added a little more powdered sugar to help so it also made it a little sweet for my taste but my husband LOVED it. I also used two different kinds of pumpkin ale (I let my husband pick since as part of his birthday gift I got him a mixed 6 pack of pumpkin beers) and both worked just fine.

This was a really delicious project. So delicious it seemed a little self serving to make it for a birthday gift… but don’t worry, I took him out to a completely not self serving birthday lunch- a delicious BBQ place where literally the only thing I ate was a side of mac and cheese. He was pretty happy.

I’d like to close by once again wishing my husband the happiest birthday yet. You are my favorite and I can’t believe I’m lucky enough to have found you and fall more in love with you year after year. Watching you grow into the role of father is beautiful, collaborating with you on our crazy theatrical ventures is a joy, and I am thankful for you everyday… especially during my crazy or stressed times where it may not seem like it! Here’s to another year of adventures.