Apple cinnamon cupcakes with a mead frosting

     The very (long) title of this cupcake makes me think of fall, and apple cider. Such lovely things, as I hope this cupcake has been for those of you who ate it. For this reason, and because it came second in the last round of voting, I decided to bake it for this week.
     I am much happier with the cake part of this cupcake than I was with the apple spice cake part of the caramel love cupcakes. While both cakes were rather dense, this recipe turned out more gooey... in a good way. The blog I found the recipe on described them as tasting like apple pie filling when fresh out of the oven, and I can see why. The caramel love cupcakes had one half cup diced apples, while these cupcakes had one cup diced apples, one and a half cups applesauce and a fair amount of cinnamon (which I think brought out the apple flavor nicely.) The applesauce did more than just add apple flavor, it made the cupcakes wonderfully moist, and instead of getting comments like "Oh, this is a really heavy cake" I heard things like "yum." I much prefer the last. I am very happy I baked these two back to back, because now I know which cake recipe to follow if I want an apple taste.
     As for the frosting on these cupcakes, all I can say is that it was interesting. I, and most I talked to about it, loved the caramel butter-cream on the caramel love cupcakes... notice how I didn't say on both cupcakes? I am unsure what others thought of this mead "frosting" but I was unimpressed. True, the flavor is unlike anything I have tasted before, but it was super sweet (and I am not a fan of sweet). I even feel weird calling it frosting since it's much more akin to a glaze. It was mostly sugar, mead, and soy milk, all stirred furiously together until it sort of looked like a goo. If the goo was left sitting for more than a few seconds, moving the spoon produced a crackle effect on the surface of the sticky substance. I suppose this isn't a bad thing, it's simply not what I expect out of a frosting. That being said, I think it complemented the cake nicely, especially once the honey swirl was added.

Here is a picture of the crackling in the glaze:

     Over all I think this cupcake turned out well, and people seemed happy with it, but I was bothered by how it looked. I could think of no real way to give it better presentation. The icing always oozed out to the sides of the cupcake eventually, and the honey swirl is just that, a swirl. While certainly not hideous, I wanted to play with icing and so was sad. I'll get over it though. Point being, loved the cake, was alright with the frosting, and disliked the over all look. I would love to know what those of you who ate them thought of the frosting and look though, so please feel free to argue with me in the comments.
     And now, on to the recipe. I got this from the cupcake project website, click on the link to see this woman's amazing cupcake blog and find all sorts of recipes. This recipe makes somewhere around 20 cupcakes depending on how full you fill the cups. I accidentally doubled the recipe because of a misreading of her blog and ended up with over 40. I still have 13 in my fridge. Unless you have a lot of people who want cupcakes, don't double the recipe. Also, I found I did not use all of the frosting (I had about a cup or so left) so if you don't want leftovers the numbers may need to be tweaked a bit.

For the cake part of the cupcake you will need:

     2 sticks of butter
     1 C + 2 T of sugar
     2 C of Flour
     4 Eggs
     1 and 1/2 C of Applesauce (unsweetened)
     1 and 1/2 t of cinnamon
     1 C of finely chopped apples (I used Granny Smith)

For the glaze you will need:
  
     1/4 C of butter
     3 T of soy milk (most likely any kind of milk will do)
     2 T of Mead (I used Strawberry mead)
     2+ cups of confectioners' sugar (waaaay more in my case)

     To make the cupcake, simply cream the butter, sugar, eggs, and flour together and then stir in the remaining ingredients. The mix will look very dry until you get the applesauce in the mix. Bake at 350 F for 25 minutes.

Hopefully they will turn out something like this:

If they turn out entirely different please check your recipe and call back later.


     To make the glaze mix all of the ingredients together with a hand mixer. I used a wisk attachment after I realized it was only going to be liquid if I kept using the beaters.

     After putting the glaze on the cupcake don't forget the honey swirl!

So there you have it. An easy, yummy apple cinnamon cupcake with mead frosting and a honey swirl. Here is the original inspiration picture:

And here is how mine ended up looking:

As a side note, Will has started his own food blog - Radical Reductions. Click on the title to go to his blog and see it for yourself. From what he has told me he will be focusing on savory foods, as a foil to my sweet. As he is a better writer and cook, this should be interesting.