Day 8 of 14 Days of Apple and it’s time for celebration, because this is my 100th post! Celebrations call for cupcakes, right? The other day, I stumbled across this cupcake cookbook in the children’s section of the library. Published in 2005, it came out long before the current cupcake craze and before the more famous Hello, Cupcake!: Irresistibly Playful Creations Anyone Can Make
These cupcakes are divine. They absolutely melt in your mouth. Although the recipe called for grating the apple, I purposely diced the apple finely so that there would be little apple chunks and I don’t regret that decision at all. I like having the little bursts of apple flavor. What really bursts through though is the cinnamon-sugar flavor – the “streusel” itself. By the way, “streusel” is German for “sprinkled topping.” I like the fact this “sprinkled topping” of butter, cinnamon and sugar, makes it unnecessary to make icing.
Apple Streusel Cinnamon Swirl Cupcakes
Makes 12 cupcakes
Ingredients
Swirl & Topping
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp ground cinnamon
Cupcakes
1 cup grated, peeled apple (1 large apple)
2 Tbsp cinnamon-sugar (from above)
1 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2 large eggs
1 cup1/2 cup canola or corn oil (see comments)
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted
Method (rewritten by me)
1. Preheat oven to 350˚F and line a dozen cupcake tin cups with paper liners.
2. Using an apple peeler/corer/slicer (or by hand), peel, core and slice one apple and then dice into small bits. In a medium bowl, toss the apple with 2 Tbsp of the cinnamon-sugar. Set aside.
3. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt. Make a small well in the center and the eggs, oil and vanilla. Mix until just blended and smooth. Stir in the apple/sugar mixture, as well as any apple juice that was released.
4. Drop 2 Tbsp of batter into each muffin cup. Spoon 1/2 tsp of cinnamon-sugar on top of the batter. Drop another scant 2 Tbsp of batter on top. Then brush or dollop melted butter on top of the batter in each cup. Sprinkle the remaining cinnamon-sugar on top of each cup of batter.
5. Bake for 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the cupcake comes out clean. Remove from oven and cool for 10 minutes. Then carefully remove cupcakes from tin to cool completely. You can do this picking them out individually (careful not to burn yourself) or flipping them out by inverting them onto a wire rack and inverting them again.
and the other was a pre-packaged brownie mix batter to which I added an extra egg. The extra egg in the brownie batter made it light enough to co-exist with cake batter in a cupcake. I spooned the golden batter into the cups first then added a large dollop of chocolate brownie batter. Then I simply swirled a knife through with a circular and upwards motion. Once baked and cooled, I iced them with a basic butter cream frosting and added some sprinkles. I don’t have any cake decorating tools, so my icing job looks pretty amateur (at best), but I’m learning. 
