Caramel Apple Cupcakes

Nothing says fall to me like something apple flavored or pumpkin flavored. Another recipe I tried out from the Georgetown Cupcake book was the Caramel Apple Cupcake. It is actually one of their September monthly specials, so I thought it was fitting to make it during the beginning of September. I told y'all, I am going to be making a lot of their cupcakes. :) I have fallen in love with cupcakes again, or cake in general. I was actually very proud of myself for getting that caramel flower down. haha. I have really shaky hands naturally so it makes decorating a bit challenging for me, but I really want to get better at decorating. These apple cupcakes are just divine, and you cannot beat a homemade caramel sauce.

Here are some photos from making the batter.

The apples are suppose to be grated, however my grater is a rather small handheld grater, and it was just turned the apples into apple sauce, i.e. much. So I decided to take the apples and just very thinly slice them. I think it worked out great, however Chris still didn't like them, but he really does not like any fruit in desserts at all.

After the batter was thoroughly mixed, I just folded in the apples. These took longer to bake, about 18-20 minutes, I think because the apples create more moisture in the batter, is why they needed longer to bake.

After these baked and cooled is when I made the caramel sauce. The caramel they use is a bit different. You start out with sugar and a little water, stir on medium high heat, or just medium heat if your stove gets extremely hot, like ours.  You mix it until all the sugar becomes liquid and then melt in your butter, then slowly add in the heavy cream when it is off the heat.

I had pre-measured all my ingredients out, and I accidentally added  milk for another recipe, instead of the heavy cream! And I was sitting there, whisking it, wondering why it wasn't thickening up like an idiot, until I looked at the counter, and realized what I had done. Honestly though, I think that was a saving grace, because I hadn't allowed the sugar to dissolve completely like it should have, because I was too frightened of burning the sugar.  So I got my sugar ready and started over again, using heavy cream and not the milk! 

You also do not want to ever leave caramel when making it, you want to constantly stir it! Once the caramel was made, I allowed it too cool in the refrigerator for twenty minutes before I filled my cakes.

To fill the cakes I just took the apple corer opposite of my peeler, and cored the middle of the cupcakes out.

Once that was completed, I just filled a pastry bag with the caramel, snipped the tip, and filled them all the way up, reserving some caramel for the flower decoration on top.

                                  

 The icing this recipe calls for is just their basic vanilla cream cheese icing. The magic here is in the apple cinnamon cake combined with that homemade caramel sauce. It is simply perfection.

I made the Caramel Apple Cupcakes the same day I made the milk chocolate birthday cake cupcakes, and sent them with Chris to work. I love setting them up in alternating, I think they look so beautiful that way.