Morale building cupcakes?

So, as I've mentioned before, I hate my job. And a meeting that occurred yesterday only managed to make that hatred even stronger as our boss called myself, my four co-workers, and my supervisor, into a meeting to tell us that she understood communication hadn't been great between us and that she would be more clear about assignments in the future. How could this piss me off you may ask? Well, instead of simply apologizing for the bad communication, she admitted that fault but then went on to say that she simply thought they had hired people who would be able to take some initiative and figure out how to do what needed to be done. Who knew it was possible to say "I made a mistake" and "It's all your fault" at the same time?

Anyway, after the meeting, everyone was a mix of furious and depressed and furious all over again. Since I have no way to make my boss any less of a jerk, or our work day any less frustrating and fruitless, I thought I'd at least bring some cupcakes to try to improve the mood in our sad little cubicles. And, if I may say so myself, the cupcakes are pretty damn good.

So here's the recipe, which came from Martha (that means you may wanna cut the recipe down since it made around 30 cupcakes for me):

Pumpkin Cupcakes:

INGREDIENTS

Makes 18.

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon coarse salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1 cup packed light-brown sugar
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 4 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 can (15 ounces) pumpkin puree

• DIRECTIONS

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line cupcake pans with paper liners; set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and allspice; set aside.
  2. In a large bowl, whisk together, brown sugar, granulated sugar, butter, and eggs. Add dry ingredients, and whisk until smooth. Whisk in pumpkin puree.
  3. Divide batter evenly among liners, filling each about halfway. Bake until tops spring back when touched, and a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes, rotating pans once if needed. Transfer to a wire rack; let cool completely.
  Now I made a mistake on the cupcakes. Instead of using the spices she lists in the recipe, I just used a bit of pumpkin pie spice since it had all the spices listed already in it. And I also am not big on spicy cupcakes, so I was light on it. Don't be. Mine needed more. I also added the ingredients in a different order, which worked out fine. I added the pumpkin and mixed it in thoroughly BEFORE the flour. If you mix too much after adding flour it can make the cupcakes more dense and drier. I don't know if changing the order did anything or not, but I know they weren't dense at all and were really moist.
• I frosted them with Maple Cream Cheese frosting, also from Martha, which I doubled to frost all those cupcakes.

Maple Cream Cheese Frosting:

• 1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese, room temperature
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 tablespoon pure maple syrup
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 2 cups confectioners' sugar

• DIRECTIONS

  1. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat cream cheese and butter together until smooth. Add maple syrup, vanilla, and confectioners' sugar; continue beating until well combined and smooth.