Categories
Dessert Uncategorized Vegetarian

Apple Streusel Cinnamon Swirl Cupcakes

Apple Streusel Cinnamon Swirl Cupcakes
Apple Streusel Cinnamon Swirl Cupcakes

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. I always like an underdog, so I am happy to feature this book with its beautiful photographs and varied recipes.

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.

Cinnamon Sugar in the middle turns to swirl
Cinnamon Sugar in the middle turns to swirl

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.

Apple Streusel Cinnamon Swirl Cupcakes
Apple Streusel Cinnamon Swirl Cupcakes
Categories
Breads Dessert Uncategorized Vegetarian

Apple-Carrot Cupcakes with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting

Apple Carrot Cupcakes
Apple Carrot Cupcakes

Day 3 of 14 Days of Apple and I decided I wanted to make an apple muffin/cupcake. I was looking around at different recipes for inspiration and guidance when I found one I like at MarthaStewart.com. That recipe calls for shredded apples and something about imagining myself taking an apple to a grater made me think of shredded carrots. I still have a scar on my thumb from shredding a carrot a little too aggressively when I was 12, but that’s another story. Anyway, I decided to split the four cups of shredded apples into two cups apples, two cups carrots et voila.

Categories
Dessert Uncategorized

Just Another Cupcake

Vanilla Cupcake with Buttercream Frosting
Vanilla Cupcake with Buttercream Frosting

I really have no business posting anything about cupcakes given what’s out there about cupcakes these days, but I had fun baking and icing these with my son today, so there.

We used a boxed vanilla cake mix and added a couple of teaspoons of vanilla for good measure. Then we made a traditional butter icing with 1 box of confectioner’s sugar, 1 stick of butter, 1/4 cup of milk and a couple of teaspoons of vanilla. We added 5 drops of red food coloring and 1 drop of blue to get this version of pink icing. Iain was excited to add sprinkles we had leftover from Christmas. Red, green, and pink: my favorite color combination.

For cupcake inspirations with a lot more heft than mine, check out:

Sprinkles Cupcakes – The original cupcake bakery. Located in Beverly Hills, it is credited with igniting the craze. The site has truly inspired gift ideas.

Dainty Cakes LA Blog – An online cupcake delivery company. They sell homemade style gourmet cupcakes, cakes, cookies, pound cakes, and other desserts. The photos are to-die-for!

Cupcakes Take the Cake – Most likely, the #1 blog about cupcakes, Rachel Kramer Bussel, Nichelle Stephens and Stacie Joy keep you coated in sprinkles with the latest in cupcake trends, news, recipes and more. They have a link list with virtually every cupcake bakery in the world. Incredible.

Cupcake Project – When Stef volunteered to make cupcakes for her friends’ wedding, she didn’t know she would become one of the leading baking bloggers out there, but she did. She’s fearless. She’ll make a cupcake out of almost anything.

Or check out this video from the Culinary Institute of America demonstrating how to make a Cupcake Bouquet.

Vanilla Cupcake with Buttercream Frosting
Vanilla Cupcake with Buttercream Frosting
Categories
Dessert Pizza and Pasta Uncategorized

Marbled Cupcakes – Chocolate Brownie + Vanilla Swirl

Chocolate Brownie + Vanilla Cupcake Swirl
Chocolate Brownie + Vanilla Cupcake Swirl

I got it into my head the other day that I just had to make marbled cupcakes. I don’t know why. I scoured the internet for techniques but in the end, I just invented my own. I needed to use what I had on hand in the pantry and I didn’t have any buttermilk or orange peel or almond extract or baker’s chocolate or lots of other things that the recipes were calling for. So I improvised. I made two batters: one was a version of Mark Bittman’s (again?!) Golden Layer Cake batter from How to Cook Everything 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.

Marbled Chocolate Vanilla Swirl Cupcake
Marbled Chocolate Vanilla Swirl Cupcake

Marbled Cupcakes – Chocolate Brownie + Vanilla Swirl
Makes 24 cupcakes

Vanilla Cake Batter

1 1/4 sticks butter, softened
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cups sugar
4 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup milk

1. Cream the butter until smooth. Add sugar gradually and continue to cream for 3-4 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, incorporating each one completely before adding the next. Then beat in the vanilla extract.

2. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder and salt. Alternate adding the flour mixture and the milk into the butter mixture, incorporating each completely before adding the next.

Chocolate Brownie Batter

1. Follow the instructions on the packaged brownie mix, but add one extra egg.

Assembling the Cupcakes

1. Preheat the oven to 350˚F. Spray two cupcake pans with cooking spray and insert paper cupcake liners.

2. Spoon in enough vanilla batter to fill about halfway up each cupcake liner. Then spoon in a heaping tablespoon of the chocolate batter. Take a knife and swirl it through the batter with an upward motion at the end. Don’t stir too much or the batters won’t remain delineated.

3. Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes. An inserted toothpick should come out clean. Cool on rack. When completely cool, ice with a simple buttercream frosting.

Buttercream Frosting

1 stick butter, softened
1 lb package of confectioners sugar
1/4 cup milk (more or less)
2 tsp vanilla extract

1. Cream the butter. Alternate adding sugar and milk, beating everything to a smooth, creamy texture. Beat in vanilla. Adjust thickness by adding milk or sugar, but remember that putting it back in the refrigerator will also thicken it up.

Marbled Cupcake
Marbled Cupcake
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