Harvest Apple Cupcakes with Caramel Frosting

Today's offering to my coworkers is a tribute to that fall favorite: the caramel apple.  I found a recipe for salted caramel frosting on chow.com that paired beautifully with the apple cupcakes.  Leave off the frosting (or not), call 'em muffins, and have one for breakfast.  Heck, have two. An apple a day, right?  Hehehe.

The cake is nice and springy and not overpoweringly sweet.  The salted caramel frosting is so good I want to submerge myself in a vat of it.   I think I might experiment with a caramel cream cheese dip for apple slices...

Anyhell, here are the recipes that I used for the cupcakes that are in the previous post.  Danko, my cat, was verrrrrrrrry interested in them, and she usually doesn't give a hoot about what's on the table, unless she can play with it.

Harvest Apple Cupcakes 

This is a recipe of my mom’s that I tweaked.  I prefer cake flour to all-purpose for cakes (most of the time). I wanted some pieces of apple, so I used chunky applesauce, and I added a bit of sour cream for tanginess  and to make the batter extra moist.

2 cups cake flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

2 tsp cinnamon

½ tsp nutmeg

1/8 tsp ground cloves

4 eggs, room temperature

1 stick butter, room temperature

1 cup white sugar

½ cup brown sugar

1 cup chunky applesauce

½ cup sour cream

1 tsp vanilla

Beat butter and sugar together until fluffy.

Mix in eggs, one at a time.

Add vanilla, apple sauce and sour cream.  Mix well.

Sift together flour, baking soda, salt, and spices.  Add to wet ingredients.  Stir to combine.

Preheat oven to 350 F.   

Scoop batter into prepared muffin liners.  Fill ¾ way.   Bake for 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Allow to cool completely before frosting.

Salted Caramel Frosting

Source: chow.com

¼ cup granulated sugar

2 Tbsp water

1 ½ sticks butter, softened

1 cup powdered sugar

¼ cup heavy cream

1 tsp vanilla

½ tsp fine sea salt

In a saucepan, combine water and granulated sugar.  Bring to a boil and cook until dark amber in color, 5-7 minutes. 

Remove from heat and stir in cream and vanilla.

Allow to cool for 20 minutes.

Beat butter, vanilla, salt and powdered sugar together until fluffy.

Scrape down sides of the bowl.  

Add caramel and beat 2-3 more minutes.

Allow to chill for at least half an hour before using

Notes: to really give these a caramel apple touch, sprinkle with chopped honey roasted peanuts

** I wonder what would happen if I popped one of those little Kraft caramels in the center before baking?  Would It gently ooze into the cupcake, or would I have a melted, scorched mess on my hands?  Something to ponder hehehe.