Apples are one of the reasons I love fall so much. I know they're available all year round, but autumn has things like apple cider and caramel apples. Last year I had made caramel apple cupcakes, but I wasn't 100% happy with it. While looking for apple cake recipes this year, I kept coming across ones that essentially used an applesauce as the source of apple in the cake. I finally found one that sounded interesting that had you grate the apples and then caramelize them in a saucepan with butter and brown sugar. I made note that it was the recipe I wanted to use and exited the page. A couple days later when I was trying to figure out where the recipe was that I found, I could not remember what website it was on for the life of me. I still have been unable to find it, and I'm not entirely sure that I didn't dream this recipe.
Butter & brown sugar in the skillet
Grated apple after cooking it on the stoveFor the frosting, I first made my own caramel and let it cool, I used it to make caramel frosting. I used the remaining caramel to swirl on top of the frosting. The caramel frosting complimented the apple cake really nicely. I'm hoping I have an excuse to make these again this autumn.
Finished cupcakes 
3 comments:
I want to try these!!! They look amazing!!!
Boy do I hope I'm not too late on this....
Can you share more details of this recipe? It looks and sounds EXACTLY like something I want to make for a shower this fall. Thanks in advance!
Nope! Not too late!
I used this Martha recipe for pumpkin cupcakes:
http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/pumpkin-cupcakes
but substituted the pumpkin puree for grated Gala apples that I caramelized with brown sugar and butter in a skillet (from the picture it looks like I used about 3 tbsp of butter & 1/4 c brown sugar). Let the apple mixture cool before using it in the cake batter. I also only used cinnamon and a tiny bit of nutmeg, leaving out the ginger & allspice. That pumpkin recipe makes fantastic cupcakes as well if you like pumpkin.
Then I made a caramel sauce. I like this one: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Caramel-Sauce-234448
I added about half the caramel sauce to a standard vanilla frosting recipe (cream together 3 sticks butter, 3 tbsp cream cheese, and 1 tsp vanilla, add 2 lbs powdered sugar and 1 tsp salt and beat until smooth. If the frosting is too stiff, gradually add milk to achieve desire consistency). The other half of the caramel, I swirled on top of the cupcakes.
Let me know if you have any questions!! :)
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