I was looking for a healthier version of pumpkin cupcakes with a lighter cream cheese frosting to take to a Halloween party and found this recipe that I adapted from Gina’s Skinny Recipes .  I modified it a bit for taste but overall they were delicious and super easy to make!  I loved that there was no eggs or oil in this recipe to save on the saturated fat most recipes like this call for.

Servings: 16 cupcakes
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 20-25 minutes

Ingredients:

Cupcakes

•  1 Box of Betty Crocker Super Moist Vanilla Cake Mix  (15.25 oz)*
• ¾ cup of canned pumpkin
• 2  tsp pumpkin pie spice
• ¾ cup of water

Cream cheese frosting

• 8 oz Philadelphia 1/3 fat cream cheese (do not use fat free)
• ½ cup canned pumpkin
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
• ½ cup packed brown sugar

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line a cupcake tin with 16 cupcake wrappers.

Combine cake mix and pumpkin spice in a large bowl. Add pumpkin puree and water, mix about 2 minutes.

Fill cupcake liners 2/3 full and bake about 20 – 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

For the frosting, combine the cream cheese, pumpkin, vanilla, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice and brown sugar until smooth. You can use a spatula to ice the cupcakes or pipe them which may require making more frosting.  If you do not pipe them then there will be a ton of icing left over.  Use the left overs as pumpkin cream cheese on your bagel in the morning – makes a delicious seasonal treat!!

*Gluten Free option can be done by substituting the Betty Crocker cake mix with a Vanilla Gluten-Free cake mix.

Nutritional Facts:
Servings: 16 • Serving Size: 1 cupcake • Weight Watcher’s Points+: 3 pts
Calories: 121.1 • Fat: 2.8 g • Protein: 1.4 g • Carb: 23.5 g • Fiber: 0.5 g • Sugar: 14.2 g Sodium: 142.3 mg