Cinnamon Cupcakes with Maple Frosting are super easy to make and are cinnamon maple goodness! They take just 15 minutes of easy prep and have a wonderful maple buttercream frosting.
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Why this Best Cinnamon Cupcake Recipe is a Keeper
If you are a fan of french toast, you will love these amazing cupcakes with all that decadent maple frosting and the very best part, is finishing with the crispy bacon topping. Imagine the reaction to serving this decadent treat at your next brunch or special occasion.
- Easy Ingredients: All of these ingredients can be easily found in your pantry or the fridge.
- Family Friendly: If your family loves french toast, they will love this recipe!
- Special Occasion Worthy: These cupcakes are cute and impressive enough to serve at a gathering.
What Is the Best Way to Get a Strong Cinnamon Flavor in Cupcakes?
When you make these cupcakes, you will add the cinnamon to the cupcake batter. However, you can make cinnamon frosting and top with cinnamon sugar on top. Fun fact, December 15 is national cupcake day!
Ingredient Notes for Easy Cinnamon Cupcakes with Maple Buttercream Frosting
You will need just a few simple ingredients to make these cinnamon swirl cupcakes. If you don’t already have these ingredients on hand, they’re all super easy to find at the store.
- Maple Syrup: I love 100% real maple syrup but use whatever your favorite is!
- Cinnamon: Cinnamon and maple are truly an irresistible combination.
- Cream Cheese: Be sure to leave your cream cheese out to soften to make mixing it in easier.
- Bacon: Bacon is optional for a garnish but is oh so good!
See the recipe card below for a complete list of the ingredients with measurements.
Prep Ahead Suggestions for Homemade Cupcakes
If you can prepare a couple things ahead of time, do so! It will help to cut down on the time you’re spending to make these delicious cupcakes with cinnamon.
- Soften Butter: Leave butter out on the counter overnight or microwave it in short intervals until softened.
- Prep Dry Ingredients: Combine dry ingredients like flour, sugar, baking powder, and baking soda in a separate bowl.
Avoid this Common Mistake
Overmixing can lead to tough, dense cupcakes. Mix the batter just until the dry ingredients are incorporated. Overmixing can also develop the gluten in the flour, making the cupcakes tough and chewy.
How to Make French Toast Cupcakes with Maple Frosting
This recipe comes together in just 4 easy steps. These cinnamon sugar swirl cupcakes are sure to be a hit!
These are the basic steps for making Cinnamon Cupcakes with Maple Frosting. Refer to the full, printable recipe card below for detailed instructions.
1. Preheat Oven and Prep Muffin Tin
Preheat oven to 350°F and line muffin tin with cupcake liners.
2. Make Cupcake Batter
Mix flour, baking powder, ground cinnamon and salt in a bowl. In another large bowl, whisk together butter, granulated sugar, and eggs until combined. Then add maple extract. Slowly combine dry ingredients and wet ingredients and beat until smooth.
3. Bake Cupcakes
Add delicious cinnamon cake batter into prepared pan and bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown. Cool cupcakes for 10 minutes, remove from pan and allow to cool completely before frosting.
4. Make the Cream Cheese Frosting
Beat together cream cheese, butter and salt. Then add maple syrup and powdered sugar until light and fluffy. Pipe the frosting on the cupcakes and garnish with cut cooked bacon pieces.
How to Store, Reheat and Use Leftovers
- Storing: Store easy cinnamon swirl cupcakes in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.
- Reheating: I wouldn’t recommend reheating these cinnamon roll cupcakes if they have frosting on them. However, you can microwave them for a few seconds at a time.
- Use Leftovers: You can turn leftover brown sugar cinnamon swirl cupcakes into cake pops! Unwrap them and throw the whole thing into a bowl and mix until it’s all the same texture.
Variations and Substitutions to Make Cinnamon Cupcakes
- Other Spices: Add other spices like cardamom or ginger to your French toast mixture for a unique flavor profile.
- Sour Cream: If you don’t have any cream cheese, you can use sour cream or greek yogurt instead!
- Topping: Sprinkle a little light brown sugar or layer of cinnamon sugar mixture on top of the frosting when the cupcakes cool.
Best Cupcakes Recipe FAQs
Serve these delicious cupcakes with Chocolate Salted Caramel Iced Coffee, Instant Pot Milk Tea Boba or Oreo Hot Chocolate Bombs.
Dry cupcakes can be the result of overbaking or adding too much flour. To ensure moist cupcakes, do not pack your flour down when measuring and stop baking the cupcakes when they spring back when you touch them.
Yes! Substitute regular flour for your favorite gluten free flour when you make these cinnamon cupcakes.
Absolutely! If you’re not a huge fan of maple, vanilla cupcakes would also be really good.
Expert Tips for Making The Best Cinnamon Cupcake Recipe
- This Recipe Can be Doubled: This is a great recipe for a crowd. Simply increase the ingredients proportionately and split it into two baking dishes before baking.
- Cinnamon Sugar: Try making a brown sugar and cinnamon buttercream frosting instead of the maple buttercream. You can also add a dusting of cinnamon on top or a cinnamon and brown sugar mixture.
- Spices: Nutmeg and ginger can also be good flavors!
- Low Fat: Fat free or low fat versions of the ingredients can be a good replacement in this cinnamon cupcake recipe.
- Check for Doneness: Cupcakes are done when you insert a toothpick into the center and it comes out clean.
- Mini Cupcakes: Use a mini cupcake pan to make minis of this cinnamon roll vanilla cupcake recipe.
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Cinnamon Cupcakes with Maple Frosting
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Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups All-purpose flour
- 1 ½ teaspoons Baking powder
- ½ teaspoon Ground cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon Salt
- 1 cup Sugar
- ½ cup Unsalted butter, softened
- 2 Eggs, room temperature
- 1 teaspoon Maple extract
- ½ cup Milk
Maple Cream Cheese Frosting
- 8 ounces Cream cheese, softened
- 1 cup Unsalted butter, softened
- Pinch Salt
- 1 teaspoon Maple syrup
- 4 ½ cups Confectioners sugar, sifted
- 4 slices Bacon, cooked
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350° degrees. Line muffin tin with baking liners.
- Combine flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt in a mixing bowl. In a large bowl, whisk together butter, sugar, and eggs until combined. Then add maple extract. Alternate between whisking in flour mixture and milk into liquid mixture. Make three additions of flour and two of milk. Beat until smooth.
- Divide batter into prepared pan and bake 20-25 minutes until golden brown and tops spring back when lightly touched. Cool cupcakes for 10 minutes, remove from pan and allow to cool completely before frosting.
- Beat together cream cheese, butter and salt until creamy. Add maple syrup. With mixer on low, add sugar 1/2 cup at a time until light and fluffy. Increase mixer speed between additions. Frost cupcakes. Cut cooked bacon into 1 inch pieces and garnish cupcakes.
Christina’s Notes
- This Recipe Can be Doubled: This is a great recipe for a crowd. Simply increase the ingredients proportionately and split it into two baking dishes before baking.
- Cinnamon Sugar: Try making a brown sugar and cinnamon buttercream frosting instead of the maple buttercream. You can also add a dusting of cinnamon on top or a cinnamon and brown sugar mixture.
- Spices: Nutmeg and ginger can also be good flavors!
- Low Fat: Fat free or low fat versions of the ingredients can be a good replacement in this cinnamon cupcake recipe.
- Check for Doneness: Cupcakes are done when you insert a toothpick into the center and it comes out clean.
- Mini Cupcakes: Use a mini cupcake pan to make minis of this cinnamon roll vanilla cupcake recipe.
- Scale the recipe: Simply adjust the serving size in the recipe card and the ingredients will update automatically.
- Make your own All Purpose Seasoning: When a recipe calls for All Purpose Seasoning, you can use my homemade All Purpose Seasoning recipe or substitute salt and pepper to taste.
- Meat doneness: I always use a meat thermometer to test for doneness when cooking meat.
- Use unsalted butter: I use unsalted butter so I can control the salt level in the recipe.
- Preheat the oven: Unless otherwise noted, always preheat your oven before baking.
For more helpful information about this recipe, such as variations, substitutions and other pro-tips, check out the blog post.
These were so good and I am dreaming of the maple frosting.
Is it wrong that I want to eat these for breakfast? And every other time of day! lol. What a scrumptious flavor combination. The whole batch was gone in 48 hours. Yum!
I think that we deserve to eat them anytime we want!!! Thanks.
So good! I have been in a bit of a cupcake rut lately when it comes to new flavors, this provided the flavor combination I didn’t know I needed in my life!
The crispy bacon topping is really a must in these cupcakes, everyone loves them! Thanks for this pleasing recipe Christina, we’ll surely have this on repeat!
Anything with cinnamon for me is YUM. This cupcakes is delicious.
I love bacon, but couldn’t imagine how it would be with a sweet dessert. oh my gosh… it’s amazing!! 🤩
You had me at cinnamon! The cupcakes are delicious. But the showstopper is that maple frosting! So good!
This french toast cupcakes recipe is a lifesaver and stress saver for what I want to make for the kids. I’m glad they like it!
They are so delicious.
I love that it has bacon in it! One of my most requested desserts is ‘THE bacon brownie’ Yum! I’m totally going to make these!!!
My friend makes these too, she loves them! They sound great:@)
We made these this morning! YUM! I do think I need to do a bit of tweeking to the recipe (kids thought the cake part was a bit blah without frosting) but overall it was really yummy! I’d suggest you make note of how many cupcakes this makes per recipe (12) and that the frosting is enough for 2 batches of cupcakes and super thick. Next time I’ll start checking the consistency at 3 cups and go from there. Thanks! : )
Thanks for the feedback, Susan! Please let me know what you do to tweak the recipe — I’d love to give it a try too!
Thanks for reporting back! 🙂