Carmel Apple Cupcakes

It’s the first day of September and Fall is coming, here in northern Utah it hasn’t quite arrived but it is coming.  And with the coming of Fall I always am reminded of the smell of cinnamon and apples.   

Today I found the most wonderful cute Carmel Apple Cupcakes.  Imagine with me, apple flavored cupcakes, filled with carmel, topped with cream cheese frosting, all decorated like a cute little apple!  I cannot wait to make these!  I just have one question, does anyone know where to get those paper cupcake cups for cheap?

Carmel Apple Cupcakes by I Heart Cupcakes

Makes 12 cupcakes (I got 16)

INGREDIENTS

For apple cupcake
2-3 apples, granny smith (I substituted 1 cup unsweetened applesauce)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1/2 cup oil
1/4 cup apple juice
1 teaspoon vanilla

For caramel
2 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
1-1/2 tablespoon light corn syrup
2/3 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoon unsalted butter, room temperature

[NOTES: Caramel recipe makes a good amount. You might want to 1/2 it or you can refrigerate any leftovers for ice cream topping or other dessert topping. Just microwave it in intervals until you get the right consistency.]

For cream cheese frosting
8oz cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, room temperature
1 vanilla bean, cut lengthwise and scraped
1 lb (~4 cups) powdered sugar, sifted

pretzels
green sprinkles
mint leaves
black sesame seeds

[NOTES: I prefer green (granny) apples when I think of caramel but you could easily use red sprinkles for a shiny red apple too!]

INSTRUCTIONS

To make cupcakes—

Preheat oven 350F.

Rinse and core the apples. Place them on an ovenproof pan or baking sheet and bake for 30-40 minutes until soft. Remove the apples from the oven, let cool slightly, then remove peel and mush the apple with the back of a fork. Measure out 1 cup of apple mush and set aside to cool.

Combine flour, sugar, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, and salt in a medium sized bowl and whisk to combine. Crack the eggs into a separate, medium sized bowl and beat with a form to break up. Add the oil, apple juice, vanilla, and cooled apple mush and mix to combine. Combine the wet and dry ingredients until all ingredients come together.

Scoop into cupcake papers about 2/3 full. Bake in 350F oven for 20-22 minutes, rotating the pan after 15 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean.

 To make caramel—
Put sugar, water and corn syrup in saucepan, stir just to combine ingredients. Turn to medium-high heat, without stirring, for 5-10 minutes until caramel turns an amber color. Wipe down any spatters with a pastry brush dipped in cold water. Lower the heat a little and add the cream and butter. (Caramel will bubble!) After the bubbling decreases, stir caramel to break down lumps. Pour into a pyrex measuring cup to cool.

You can see caramel pictures on my food blog.

To make frosting—
Whip the butter and cream cheese together in a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment until creamed. Add vanilla beans. Gradually add powdered sugar. Scrape down the bowl as needed.

To assemble cupcakes—
Fill cupcakes with caramel using the cone method.

Dollop a fairly good amount of frosting and shape into a spherical shape.

Roll cupcake in green sprinkles to cover the frosting. Break off pretzel and stick into the top to resemble a stem. Insert a mint “leaf” in the frosting near the stem. Notch out a “bite” shape and arrange 3 sesame seeds to resemble apple seeds.

ENJOY!

Husband rating: A
He really like the apple cupcake but not a huge fan of the caramel center. He loves that cream cheese frosting but not with the sprinkles. I think its a texture thing for him.

Wifey rating: A/A+
I loved the flavors of the apple cupcake with the caramel and cream cheese frosting. And who knew that pretzels with cream cheese frosting was so good?? HAHA. I realize that the apple may not be anatomically correct but I think the seeds are pretty darn cute anyways.

So cute, thank you I Heart Cupcakes for sharing!

 

If you are looking for more great Autumn Cupcake ideas, head over to Party Cupcake Ideas for a list of 25 Autumn Cupcakes.

I {Heart} S’mores

I love summer, and what goes better with summer than s’mores.  There have been so many great s’more ideas floating around the blogosphere.  My favorite round up so far was posted by Lori over at Be Different . . . Act Normal.

My favorite link she shared, Chocolate Cake S’more Cookies by Picky Palate.  Yumm-o! 

Stuck In My Head

Do you ever see something and it just gets stuck in your head.  I have a few crafty/baking projects that I can’t stop thinking about.  I wish I had a reason to make them . . . The only reason I can come up with is my little one’s birthday is coming up, but I’m not sure they tie together . . .

 

Project #1

Found via Edible Crafts

Tutorial HERE over at Woman’s Day

Cutest cake I’ve ever ever seen!

I reminded me a lot of these cupcakes Bakerella did a while ago. 

 

Project #2

Again from Bakerella, what can I say the woman is a genius! 

She posted about these Cake Pops a few weeks ago and I have been obsessing over them in my mind since then. 

 

 

 

 

So what theme could I use for a two year-old girl’s birthday party in a month that would let me use these great ideas?

Ladybug Cupcakes

My friend asked me to make some ladybug cupcakes and a cake for her daughter’s first birthday.  I looked all over, but didn’t find anything that was simple enough or that I liked enough.  So this is what I came up with.

{What You’ll Need}
dozen cupcakes
1 can of vanilla frosting
1 can of chocolate frosting
black food coloring
red food coloring
ziplock freezer bags
mini Oreo cookies
edible eyeballs
black licorice strings

{How To}
Tint vanilla frosting red.  *What I learned:  Use coloring paste not regular food coloring.  These ladybugs turned out being pinkish red, and the picture makes them look orange.  Blah!

Add a few drops of black food coloring to the chocolate frosting.  Using chocolate frosting makes it so much easier to get your frosting a true black

Fill two ziplock freezer bags with black or red frosting.  Snip of the end of each.  Make sure you don’t take too much off of the black bag, you can always go back and make it bigger if you want, but you can’t go back and make it smaller!

Frost cupcakes with red frosting.

Add a head by making and oval outline with the black frosting then filling it in. 

Make a stripe down the back of the cupcake.  I used a piece of thread and laid it in the red frosting to give me a line to follow. 

Add edible eyes and spots.  Split Mini Oreos in half and push into frosting.

Snip black licorice strings and push into cupcake for antennae.  Sorry these aren’t in the picture, I forgot to buy them and then forgot to take another picture when I got back.   

Mini Monkey Bread

I had never eaten Monkey Bread until I married my husband. What a sad existence I was living up until then. I have been dying to make it ever since (for two years now!). I found a simplified recipe at Get Off Your Butt and Bake that was perfect because our freezer was being over powered by Rhodes Rolls. I didn’t have the Texas size rolls, just the dinner roll, but they worked just fine. I also made some MONSTER Mini Monkey Bread in my MONSTER muffin tin. My changes and thoughts are in { }. I didn’t make too many changes and we loved them. I don’t even know if they’ll make it 24 hours!

Mini Monkey Bread

12 Rhodes Dinner rolls thawed, but still cold
1 stick of butter, melted
2 tablespoons corn syrup
1 1/4 cups brown sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon

Icing (I doubled this.)
1 cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon butter, melted
1-2 tablespoons milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Cut each dinner roll into 6 equal pieces. In a bowl, combine butter and corn syrup and stir until well mixed. In another bowl, combine sugar and cinnamon and mix well. Dip each roll piece in the butter mixture and then in the sugar mixture. Place 6 pieces in each well sprayed cup of a 12 cup muffin tin {I just used cupcake liners}. Cover with sprayed plastic wrap and let double in size. (Watch them so they don’t rise too much!) Remove wrap and bake at 350°F 15-20 minutes. Combine icing ingredients and mix well. Drizzle over monkey breads if desired. {Lazy me, I just used a can of Cream Cheese Frosting.}

Cool at least 5 to 10 minutes before removing from pan, or they fall apart. {Still important even if you used cupcake liners!}

Fondue: Eggless Cookie Dough

Have you ever tasted the goodness of fondue? It’s such a simple tasty treat. We love taking it parties and impressing all our friends. Ok, well impressing the same friends over and over, we don’t have that many friends! The possibilities of things you can dip in that chocolaty goodness are truly endless! One of my favorite things to dip is cookie dough. Take a minute . . . think about it . . . Genius right. I’ve tried a few different cookie dough options. I made my own chocolate chip cookie recipe and used that dough. I’ve used just plain and simple Pillsbury cookie dough, we always keep some in the fridge incase we need something quick. Both were good, but there were two problems. First neither stayed together very well when you skewered the balls, it always fell apart in the fondue pot. Second, I worried about the raw eggs. So my solutions, da dada daaa (trumpets blaring), this awesome egg free cookie dough recipe. It was originally used to make cookie dough truffles. But solved my two problems and is so delicious!

Eggless Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour (*You may need more flour than this. I added about 1/4 cup more because the dough was a little too sticky.)
1 can (14 ounces) sweetened condensed milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips
(Optional) 1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Directions:
In a mixing bowl, cream the butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Add the flour, milk and vanilla; mix well. Stir in the chocolate chips and walnuts. Shape into 1-in. balls; place on waxed paper-lined baking sheets. Loosely cover and refrigerate for 1-2 hours or until firm. (I put them in the freezer for about 40 minutes and that worked well, too. All about speed.)

So what do YOU like to dip in fondue?

Peanut Butter Bars {The BEST EVER! Alpine School District Lunch Version}

I know, school lunch might bring back some awful memories for some of us.  But trust me these are THE best peanut butter bars you will ever taste!  I used to buy school lunch just for the peanut butter bars.  I found this recipe in a Ward Cookbook that I received as a wedding gift, of course first thing I checked out was the dessert section! 

 

Peanut Butter Fingers
(Local Elementary School Version)

3/4 cup butter

3/4 cup sugar

3/4 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

3/4 cup peanut butter

3/4 tsp soda

3/4 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 cup flour

1 1/2 cup oats

3/4 cup additional peanut butter

Chocolate frosting

Combine first 8 ingredients; mix well.  Add flour and oats; press into 9 x 13 pan.  Bake at 320 for 20 to 25 minutes.  Top with additional peanut butter while still warm.  Cool.  Spread with frosting.  Cut into squares.

Stephanie Wilkey
Cedar Hills 2nd Ward Neighborhood Recipe Collection, pg. 153

Chocolate Frosting

1/2 bag powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1 cube butter

1/4 cup cocoa

1/4 cup milk

Mix all ingredients together, add more milk if needed.

Stephanie Wilkey
Cedar Hills 2nd Ward Neighborhood Recipe Collection, pg. 157

{Picture: Cheesy Kitchen}

Mint Shamrock Cupcakes

These ended up being my most successful St. Patrick’s Day project.  That was until my husband asked, “What are those supposed to be?  Flowers?”  “No shamrocks!  You know for St. Patrick’s Day!”

I found the recipe and idea at Pleasant Home, via Be Different . . . Act Normal

I started out with a boxed cake mix, a package of Fudge Grasshopper Cookies, and a can of chocolate frosting (but ended up using almost two cans), and white chocolate almond bark. 

Mix cake mix according to directions.  In each cupcake liner place one cookie, fill 1/4 full with batter. 

While cupcakes are cooking start making shamrocks.

 

 

I only had white chocolate almond bark on hand, which is not very St. Patricky, so I melted the chocolate and added some green food coloring.  Wha-la green chocolate!

To make my shamrocks I found some clipart online, printed it off and stuck it under some wax paper on a cookie sheet.  I need an outline, freehand scares me!  I filled a ziplock bag with the chocolate, snipped off the corner and piped away.  Note:  I have learned that the sandwich baggies do not work so great for using as a piping bag.  The freezer bags are much sturdier and won’t grow extra unwanted holes. 

 

 

 

After the cupcakes have cooled frost and top with shamrocks.  To frost I filled a ziplock bag with frosting.  This time I wanted something fancy.  First I reinforced the corner of one of the bags with a few pieces of packing tape.  Then snipped off a good portion of the corner.  Just using this would give me smooth swirlies, so I snipped a few zig zag triangles and ta-da cheap disposable fancy frosting bag. 

 

 

 

 

The results:  De-lish.  Got the husband and 18 month old stamp of approval.  The cookie in the bottom made a delightfully crispy little crust!

 

 

I used my Cricut to cut out some shamrocks, put a few on a plate with those chocolate gold coins, used some cellophane, added a tag and ribbon, and gave them to neighbors and the families that my husband and I home/visit teach. 

I’m Melting!

I made these snowmen sugar cookies for our Relief Society Christmas party in December, stay with me here I realize it’s March. But I was reminded of them today as I walked around outside. All of our snow is melting {FINALLY}! Singing “Hallelujahs” as I type.

I thought that they would be a perfect treat with a tag that says, “You melt my heart!”. (Note to self, learn how to upload pdf’s and such for others to print and use. Help?!) I hope I get to make another batch soon, and better get on it quick since it’s practically Spring, at least that’s what I keep telling myself. They were super simple. I was quite impressed with how great these instructions were, and how easy it was to frost a cookie this way.

Some changes I made:

I didn’t use fondant for the nose, instead I used slightly nuked orange Starbursts. Worked out great because those are my least favorite flavor, and I enjoyed eating the leftovers!

Also, I didn’t use fondant for the buttons, instead I used Mini M&M’s. A tube that you pick up by the check stand was perfect. I thought about using Starbursts here too, but thought the M&M’s would be easiest.

I was stalking around looking for ideas to steal and came across another version from a blog I enjoy, Cookies and Cups.

To Die For Hot Fudge

Fact: One of my favorite desserts of all time is brownies and ice cream.

The other night we were supposed to take the dessert to go with dinner at a friend’s house. Problem, we had been there done that with brownies and ice cream several times, and we wanted to bring something awesome so they would invite us back. Solution, when in a pickle I always turn to my trusted Blogging Idols.

I found this A-MAZ-ING Hot Fudge recipe (and it gets bonus points for being simple). It was a hit! We will be doomed to bringing dessert now forever.

To Die For Hot Fudge Sauce

1 can of Condensed Milk (like Eagle Brand) - Do not use evaporated Milk

1 stick of Butter

1 tsp. Vanilla

1 cup of Milk or Semi chocolate Chips.

Mix all ingredients together in saucepan over low heat, until melted and well blended.

Store remaining Hot Fudge in jar with lid, or well sealed container.

You can keep this in your fridge for many days. Simply warm when ready to use.

Seriously people. If you are not convinced head over to the mastermind behind it all. She just posted a new recipe today where she uses this same sauce on Hot Fudge Oreo Cupcakes. Maybe bringing dessert from now on won’t be so bad.