"See what you can do with... Apple"

Sean said these words to me shortly after the Chocolate Raspberry experiment.  The same Sean who came up with the name of this blog.  I'm always up for a challenge, so I made some apple cupcakes.  I've been told that the best apple to use for baking is Winesap, but I've never heard of them and they definitely were not in any of the grocery stores that I went to in Sarasota.  I eventually decided on some Gala apples, and they worked just fine since they are traditionally a sweet apple.

Here is the recipe that I used for the Apple Cupcakes.

1 cup, unsalted butter
2 cups, sugar
5 large eggs
3 cups, all purpose flour 
2 teaspoons, baking powder
1/2 teaspoon, salt
1 cup, milk
1 1/2 teaspoon, vanilla
4 cups, apples (peeled, cored & diced)


Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Cream together butter and sugar, until fluffy.  Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each.  In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt.   Add dry ingredients to butter mixture in parts, alternating with the milk & vanilla, and beat until all ingredients are incorporated.  Using a rubber spatula, stir in apples.   Scoop into cupcake pans (I always use an ice cream scoop for this) and bake for 25-30 minutes.

Now, I originally planned on frosting these with a butterscotch cream cheese frosting, but didn't plan on only getting enough icing for 12 cupcakes out of the recipe (when I had 24 cupcakes).  So, half of the cupcakes got the butterscotch cream cheese frosting and the other half got a caramel buttercream.  Both of the frostings were from another one of my favorite cupcake places: Magnolia Bakery in NYC.  The recipes are in their book, "The Complete Magnolia Bakery Cookbook," along with a lot of other tasty treats.

Since I'm fairly new to the blogging world, I don't really know what the rules are.  But, I would assume that printing their recipes on my blog probably isn't a nice thing to do.  (Plus, my cookbook is in my office in Sarasota and therefore I won't see it again until January!)  So for now the photos will have to do.  Here's a shot of the half that were lucky enough to get the butterscotch cream cheese frosting.

And, for the one that Sean actually ended up liking better - the Apple Cupcake with Caramel Buttercream Frosting:

This was the first cupcake that I brought to work with me and started sharing with the cast of my show, and they were a hit.  It led to many more baked goods in rehearsals.