When a bunch of people tag you or share the same recipe on your timeline on Facebook, you know this is a recipe you have to make! The Apple Cider Cupcakes and Brown Sugar Cinnamon Buttercream by wishesndishes.com sounded delicious, too.
I love Fall. It's my favorite season. The smells of cinnamon and cloves everywhere are so heartwarming and uplifting. Wegmans sells these cinnamon scented pinecones right by the front door when you walk in; I inhale a bit deeper when I am walking in because it just smells so good. And don't forget all the delicious desserts that pop up in the fall like pumpkin bread, zucchini bread, and now these apple cider cupcakes!
Even though it was like 84*F around here yesterday, I really wanted to make these cupcakes. The majority of the ingredients are something that every baker has on hand (i.e. Flour, Sugar, cinnamon, butter, etc...). For this recipe, I used local cider from Mayer Brothers Cider Mill (they are in no way affiliated with this blog and I was not paid to use their product). Their cider is always in our house starting in August til they close for the season in November. So deliciously refreshing!
Though this recipe is delicious on its own, I wanted to kick things up a notch, so I added caramelized apples as a filling in the cupcake! To make caramelized apples will take you about ten minutes and I think it's totally worth the extra effort!
Caramelized apples:
2 tbsp unsalted butter
2 tbsp brown sugar
2 peeled and finely chopped apples (I used empire cuz that's what I had in the house)
1. Melt the butter in a small sauce pan, then add the brown sugar. Stir well. Add the apples. Cook for 5-10 minutes so that the apples get soft, but not too soft (you don't want to make applesauce).
After the cupcakes were baked, I simply took a steak knife and hollowed out the centers, but not all the way to the bottom. Then spooned in the apples. Once everything was pretty cool, I topped the cupcakes with that delicious brown sugar buttercream.
You can also use a large decorating tip to hollow out cupcakes. I even think there is a Wilton set for hollowing and filling cupcakes.
Please ignore how my pan looks in the photos below. I've had it for over 10 years and it's been used probably 500x or more. I love it because it has these thick rubber handles on the sides (not pictured) so it's really easy to get out of the oven. I have another pan that doesn't have handles and I almost always stick my oven mitt's thumb right into a baked cupcake.
Make sure you chop the apples fine. I didn't make mine small enough so I couldn't get as many into the cupcakes as I had wanted, but I will say that eating the leftover apples was quite tasty! This was only 2 apples, too. Two apples goes a long way for filling.
These are SOOOO good!