There’s pretty much nothing better than autumn, and not just  because of my birthday! I love the cooler weather, the changing leaves, apple season and everything that goes along with apple season like apple cider, apple pie, apple sauce, and apple crisp. We went apple picking for the first time on September 25th, the day after my birthday. Our favorite apples are Jonamacs, which is a cross between a Jonathan and McIntosh. I first tried this kind of apple  a couple years ago and despite never eating anything but McIntosh or Cortlands I was hooked. We picked something like 7lbs and ate them all in less than a week. Besides regular apple crisp I decided I needed to make an apple crisp cupcake.

I tried this recipe once with a Jonamac apple and it wasn’t stellar. So I got one 20oz apple which is a good baking apple, and it was much better.

The original recipe calls for milk. I wanted to boost the apple flavor and between Jenna and my mom giving me the okay I substituted apple cider.

The recipe is also pretty vague about the apple. It just says “one apple”. Well apples come in all sizes. The Jonamac I used the first time was pretty small. The 20oz apples are HUGE! I didn’t even use the whole apple and the cupcakes had a lot of fruit in them.

The original recipe calls for a “streusel” that goes in the middle of the cupcake. All it was, was brown sugar, cinnamon and butter. As you can imagine that just melted and made the cupcakes a hot mess. It left the cupcakes with holes in the middle and made getting the wrapper off very difficult. I decided to use my regular apple crisp topping. There isn’t so much a recipe. I used some butter and then dumped in some oatmeal, flour, brown sugar and cinnamon. It if doesn’t look right I add some more of everything (except butter). I probably should measure next time I made it!

I made sure to really press the topping into the cupcakes because I didn’t want it to all fall off as the cupcakes rose.

Once again Jenna came to the rescue, this time for frosting help. I tweeted my need for a good creamy caramel frosting and she hit me up with TWO! I don’t have  any pictures of me making the frosting because it’s hard to take a picture of stuff on my stove top, there isn’t much light and the pictures end up dark and boring. But here are some of the final product:

Apple Crisp Cupcakes:

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
2 eggs
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1/3 cup apple cider
1 apple, peeled, cored and diced

4 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup oatmeal (total guess)
1/2 cup brown sugar (total guess)
1/3 cup flour (total guess)
cinnamon to taste

In a small bowl, mix together flour, baking powder and salt.

In large bowl, whisk together sugar, butter, eggs and vanilla until smooth. Alternately whisk in flour mixture and milk, making 3 additions of flour and 2 of milk, beating until smooth. Stir in apples. Fill lined cupcake tin about 2/3 of the way full.

Combined butter, oatmeal, brown sugar and cinnamon. Using your fingers blend the butter mixture until it forms pea size lumps. If it’s too sticky add more oatmeal, flour and sugar. Distribute evenly among cupcakes, making sure to press the topping into the batter. Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes.

Adapted from the apple crisp cupcake recipe from 125 Best Cupcakes cookbook.

Caramel Frosting:

1 (1 pound) box of powdered sugar, sifted
1 cup (2 sticks) of unsalted butter
2 cups of light brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup of heavy cream or milk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Sift powdered sugar into a mixing bowl; set aside. In a heavy bottomed saucepan, combine the butter and brown sugar and stir over medium low heat until blended. Stir in the cream and bring mixture up to a full rolling boil. Immediately remove from the heat and add the vanilla extract and blend. Set aside to cool until lukewarm. When ready to frost the cake, add the mixture to the mixing bowl with the sifted powdered sugar and beat on high until creamy and spreadable.  If icing begins to harden, beat in, literally only a drop or two of cream at a time, by hand to loosen it. Don’t add too much, just a drop until it’s spreadable again.

I have been wanting to make these cupcakes for a long time. Last summer when I was pregnant I could not get enough root beer floats. I loved them. And I’m pretty sure the number I had BEFORE last year could be counted on one hand. Naturally I wanted to do a cupcake version! I saw this picture on flickr and the photographer was nice enough to link me to the recipe she used.

I had trouble finding several ingredients that I needed. The root beer syrup (or dessert topper) my brother had at his house and I asked where he got it. He found it at this weird they-have-everything close out type store in Windsor, VT. It’s called Mr. G’s. Sometimes they have perfectly find stuff, sometimes they have expired mustard. I didn’t get a chance to go there when I was in Vermont in July so I asked my father to stop by for me and sure enough they still had some. And it’s not expired! My mom brought it to me in August. The root beer concentrate I finally found at Walmart per several people’s suggestions. My fancy pants grocery store carries tons of extracts and whatnot but not root beer. The natural foods store in my area had sarsaparilla but not root beer. Finally hit Walmart and sure enough, they had it. The other ingredient I had trouble finding was affordable vanilla beans. I was not about to spend $10 on two vanilla beans but finally I found some in an international aisle!

I’ll be honest, I wasn’t blown away by the flavor of the vanilla bean buttercream. Maybe it was an issue of quality. But it didn’t taste very vanilla-y. I used a lot of just regular vanilla extract. However it definitely gives an ice cream appearance to the buttercream! I made two different buttercreams; a root beer buttercream where instead of using vanilla I used a combination of root beer syrup and root beer extract and then the vanilla bean butter cream. Root beer buttercream goes on first and then a scoop of the vanilla bean buttercream.

By the time I got to frosting the cupcakes my 8 month old was crying from pinching his fingers in the garbage can so I have no pictures of me frosting them. But I used a 3TB cookie scoop to scoop the vanilla bean butter cream “ice cream” on top. Then I used a Pepperidge Farm pirouette as an edible straw.

Cupcakes:

1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
6 tbsp butter, room temperature
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup root beer syrup
1/3 cup milk

Preheat oven to 350F. Line a 12 cup muffin tin with paper liners.
In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt.
In a large bowl, cream together butter and brown sugar until light. Beat in egg and vanilla extract. Add in one third of the flour mixture, followed by the root beer syrup. Mix in another 1/3 of the flour mixture, followed by the milk. Stir in all remaining flour and mix just until no streaks of dry ingredients remain.
Bake for 16-18 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cupcakes comes out clean. Cool cupcakes completely on a wire rack.

Source.

Root beer buttercream

1 1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar (add more until it reaches your preferred consistency)
1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
Root beer concentrate and/or syrup to taste
1 tablespoon milk

Beat together sugar and butter until they are blended and creamy. Add root beer concentrate and milk and continue to beat until blended.

Vanilla bean buttercream

1 1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar (add more until it reaches your preferred consistency)
1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 vanilla bean, halved length wise with the insides scraped out (the seeds)
1 tablespoon milk

Beat together sugar and butter until they are blended and creamy. Add vanilla bean seeds and milk and continue to beat until blended.

My mom was here for a week and we went blueberry picking one day. We ate a ton, made peach-blueberry cobbler and the afternoon of her last day here I decided to make her some cupcakes. I had been planning on making them anyway but was feeling lazy. I had just enough blueberries left for half a batch of Martha Stewart’s blueberry cupcakes. I decided to add some lemon to them as I had three in the fridge. It was late in the day when I made these and because I don’t have an external flash for my camera I have very minimal pictures – just of the final product as I made these in a real hurry. Martha’s recipe calls for  just a whipped cream frosting. I decided to make lemon cream cheese. I used the same frosting I used for my lime cupcakes but just used lemon instead. These cupcakes are super good but I think I added too much lemon to my frosting. Either that or I need some blueberry in the frosting as well.

Blueberry lemon cupcakes:

¾ cup plus 2 tbsp. all-purpose flour, divided
¾ cup cake flour
1½ tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. salt
8 tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature
¾ cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
Zest of  1 lemon
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 tbsp. lemon juice
½ cup plus 2 tbsp. milk, at room temperature
1 cup fresh blueberries

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line standard or mini muffin tins with paper liners.

2. Whisk together both flours, baking powder, and salt. With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until each is incorporated, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Beat in vanilla.

3. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture in three batches, alternating with two additions of milk, and beating until combined after each. Fold in blueberries by hand.

4. Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each three-quarters full. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.

Adapted from Martha’s blueberry cupcake recipe.

Lemon cream cheese frosting:

1 8-ounce package cream cheese, room temperature
1½ cups powdered sugar
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 tablespoon finely grated lemon peel
1 tablespoon of lemon  juice

Beat all ingredients in a bowl until smooth. Spread for pipe on cupcakes. Eat.

Adapted from bon appétit.

I can’t tell you how long I’ve been waiting to make a s’more cupcake. It was a few years ago I saw a couple of cupcake ladies on some morning talk show making them and since then I’ve been obsessed. I finally decided it was summer, I had to make them!

I had a little issue deciding on HOW to make them. I have graham flour that I bought to make my 8 month old homemade graham crackers so I thought I could  make a graham cupcake and then somehow do chocolate and marshmallow. But ultimately I decided on a graham cracker crust under a chocolate cake with a marshmallow seven minute frosting. Mmmmm.

I found that my shot glass worked perfected to press down the graham cracker crust!

About the only thing I remember from watching those ladies make the cupcakes on TV was that they added chocolate to the top of the graham cracker crust. I don’t remember WHY. But heck, it’s chocolate so it can’t do anything but make the cupcake better, right?

I’ve made a seven minute, or boiled frosting before. But I wanted something with actual marshmallow in it. Thanks to google and fluff I found the fluff seven minute frosting. I’ll be honest it admit it doesn’t taste any different than a regular, non marshmallow seven minute frosting. But this is a s’more cupcake so it made it feel better there was marshmallow somewhere in the cupcake!

I don’t have a blow torch or a dessert torch. I thought about buying one but the cheapest it about $20 and I have a kitchen about the size of a postage stamp so I decided, with the advise of my Mom, to just use the broiler in my oven. It worked really well!! You do have to keep an eye on them because they go from not toasted looking to OMG THEY’RE ABOUT TO BURN in about one second. Also? Have your Mom do it like I did! Thanks Mom!

And a naked cupcake, so you can see the crust:

These cupcakes are my new favorite. The chocolate on top of the crust just adds a very pleasant chocolate punch to the cupcake. And the graham cracker crust and chocolate chocolate cake is just about a match made in heaven. Add in the delicious seven minute frosting, which has always been one of my favorites, and this is cupcake utopia. It really truly tastes like a s’more. Only better. Because it’s a cupcake.

Graham cracker crust:

1½ cups graham cracker crumbs
¼ cup sugar
5 1/3 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted
4 oz. chocolate, finely chopped (I used semi sweet. And I only used 4oz because it was what I had. You could TOTALLY use more)

In a small bowl, combine the graham cracker crumbs, sugar and melted butter. Mix well with a fork.  Put about 1 tablespoon of the graham cracker mixture in the bottom of each cupcake liner and press down to line the bottom. Sprinkle a small amount of the chopped chocolate on top of the graham cracker crusts.  Bake at 350 for 5-7 minutes.  Remove from the oven.

Chocolate cake:

2 cups plus 2 tbsp. sugar
1¾ cups all-purpose flour
¾ cup cocoa powder
1½ tsp. baking powder
1½ tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
2 large eggs
1 cup milk
½ cup vegetable oil
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water

Combined dry ingredients in large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Pour batter on top of the graham cracker crust until cup is 3/4 full. Bake at 350 15-20 minutes or until done.

Source.

Fluff Seven Minute Boiled Frosting:

1 cup Marshmallow Fluff
2 egg whites, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
1/4 tsp. cream of tartar
1/8 tsp. salt
1/4 cup water
1 tsp. vanilla extract

In double-boiler top over hot, not boiling water, combine all ingredients except vanilla. With hand mixer, beat until soft peaks form. Remove from heat and continue beating until stiff. Beat in vanilla. Frosting cupcakes. If you want them to look toasted either use a dessert torch or use your oven’s broiler.

Source.

I really want to get back into baking and updating this blog and I thought what better way than doing a series of summer cupcakes these last few weeks before summer comes to an end. I decided the first cupcake that needed to be made was a pink lemonade cupcake. I was googling around for a recipe and having a hard time finding one that didn’t call for a boxed cake. I tweeted just that and Jenna from All About Avacakes was nice enough to find a recipe for me! Then strangely enough while looking through one of my many cupcake books I found that EXACT cupcake! It was from my 125 Best Cupcake Recipes cookbook though and the last time I made a cupcake from them they ended up in the trash. But because someone else had made them and approved I decided I was okay!

I wanted to get a candy straw type thing for a garnish but couldn’t find anything. I bought some black licorice “string” but it was too floppy. I also purchased some lemon “slices” from my grocery store’s bulk candy department but because they were yellow I didn’t really like how they looked with the pink cupcakes.

I finally settled on just some pink sprinkles.

These cupcakes do definitely taste like pink lemonade! A bit of summer in cupcake form!

Pink Lemonade Cupcakes: