My Little Recipes: Cooking is Magic

Sugarcube Corner’s Apple Cupcakes

Lemme tell you guys what, these little puppies look like little apple pies and taste like ‘em, too! It’s a perfect modernized spin on the classical apple pie recipe, and it couldn’t get much tastier than this!

Ingredients

Eggs (2)
Vegetable oil (1/2 Cup)
Cinnamon applesauce (1/2 Cup)
White sugar (2 Cups)
Ground cinnamon (1 and 1/2 Tsp.)
Salt (1/2 Tsp.)
Vanilla extract (1 Tsp.)
All-purpose flour (2 Cups)
Baking soda (1 Tsp.)
Apples (4 Cups, peeled & cored & finely diced)
Garnishing: 2 Red OR Green apples

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Remember, preheating is essential for a well cooked cake!
In a mixing bowl, the beat oil and eggs with an electric mixer until creamy. Add the sugar and vanilla and beat well.
Combine the applesauce, flour, salt, baking soda, and ground cinnamon together in a bowl. Slowly add this mixture to the egg mixture and mix until combined. The batter will be very thick. Fold in the apples by hand using a wooden spoon. Put ‘er in your cupcake cups and tap the sides to release any air bubbles.
Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for about 15-20 minutes. Check them after the first 10 minutes and once every 5 minutes after until the middle springs back at your finger ever so slightly. They should be crunchy looking and caramelized on top.

For the frosting, you’ll need a couple of special ingredients you should be able to find in any grocery store, mostly in the baking section. There are so many different frosting types out there, this is just the type I made on a whim (and also because I was running out of time with a bunch of hungry party guests ganging up in the kitchen!)

Ingredients:

Shortening (1 cup)
Vanilla flavoring (1/2 Tsp.)
Almond flavoring (1/4 Tsp.)
Butter flavoring (1/4 Tsp.)
Red OR Green food coloring (Correspond it with the color of your garnishing apples!)
Water (About 9 Tsp.)
Confectioner’s sugar (About 1/2 of a bag or 1 lb.)
Meringue powder (1 Tbs.)
Apple pie spice (Usually you can go to a local spice shop and find phenomenal spices premixed. I used just under four small pinches)
A bit of salt, just a pinch!

Cream the shortening, flavorings, 2 drops of red or green food coloring and water. Add dry ingredients and mix on medium speed until all ingredients are mixed well together. Add a few pinches of pie spice to taste and blend until creamy and stiff.

Garnish the cupcakes after frosting with a slice of apple (corresponding with the either red or green frosting!) and you’re done!