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.

Caramel love cupcakes

I have been terribly negligent, using my parents arrival as an excuse to not bake. I apologize and hope to get back on schedule shortly. First though, I will take a cooking break to a) work on papers and b) give people time to vote on the next baked good. Hopefully I will post the choices on here in the next few days.

     For now, here is the winner of the last vote, the Caramel love cupcake!

Here is the inspiration:

here is what I ended up with:

 

 Ta da!

     There you have it. I actually made a traditional french butter-cream for the frosting... and then added caramel of course. From the feedback I have decided that the cake is probably not the best, and is rather dense but the frosting is a winner. Also, people loved my mock-stroopwaffle. Since I could not find such a thing in the stores, nor did I have money to buy all the ingredients needed to make the real thing I bought apple-cinnamon waffles, cut them in half, put cinnamon and caramel in the middle, and because I had no small cookie cutters, cut them into pie wedges. I like the look, and so far I have heard no complaints against the taste, so I call it a win. 

     So that people have time to vote on another kind of baked good I think I will make the mead frosting cupcakes so that I can play with a different kind of apple cake batter and see if some other recipe might be more satisfying.

For now, I hope all of you who tried the cupcakes enjoyed them, and I will attempt to be more consistent with the blog in the future. Here's hoping.

Choose your poison

     I have finally found a home for the two rainbow cakes from my previous post. I have been informed that the first cake did not have sweet enough frosting, so for the second I attempted to remedy that by adding more powdered sugar to the butter cream frosting. I have been told by a few that it worked, but if you are reading this and disagree I would love to know. I am on a diet that inhibits sugar intake so I'm honestly not the best judge of what is sweet enough right now. Which brings me to my next baking project... but first - I wanted to show you want I did with the left over tops of the cakes (that I got rid of with the awesome cake leveler.)

 

     Ta da! I decided to take some disposable shot glasses, crumble the cake and layer it with the frosting. I think it turned out quite charming for some extra bits of cake that I thought about tossing out. I am now ashamed that I almost threw all that yumminess away. It would have been quite a waste.
 
     As I was saying earlier though, my taste for sweets is off a bit of late and I would like to remedy that. This coming week I want to focus as much as possible on flavor. While I still care about ascetics, I feel that I should learn more about how to make things taste the way I want them to, and the way other people like them to.
     I will bake one of four styles of cupcake this coming week. The choices are all listed below, complete with picture and description of each. I would love for as many people to vote as possible. You can leave a comment on this blog, or post your vote on Facebook, or Twitter. You can even email me your vote if you feel so moved! Point being, VOTE. That way I know what people want to eat and I can bake accordingly. And remember, those who vote, get at least one cupcake!
     Now that I have firmly established this "I want people to vote thing" let me set out the guide lines for voting. The important thing to know is that you can vote for more than one cupcake. If you do vote for more than one, please rank your picks. You can tell me why you voted, or you can simply write the title of the cupcake. Eventually I will figure out how to make a poll on here and things will get a lot easier for you guys.

     IMPORTANT: Let me know if you are allergic to any of the current cupcake picks. I do not want to be responsible for a trip to the hospital and the use of an Epi-pen. I will do my part and list the ingredients (other than the obvious flour/milk/cream/sugar/butter), do your part and keep me from injuring friends.

      Now that that's out of the way, let's get to the cupcakes.

1. The "Love Carmel Cupcake"

This cupcake was designed by a loving blogger in memory of her mother. If you would like to see her blog she is over at http://www.thelonebaker.com/. This cupcake is full of carmeley goodness with some apple-spice thrown in for good measure. The waffles on top are dutch stroopwaffles (hard waffles with caramel in the middle) and baking this cupcake would mean an excess of those, so be prepared to suffer. ;)

Ingredients: Apples, Cinnamon, Caramel, Vanilla, pie spice

2. The "Apple Cinnamon Cupcake (with Mead Frosting and a Honey Swirl)"

This cupcake was inspired by the Rosh Hashana tradition of dipping apples in honey. The recipe I would use is from the blogger at http://www.cupcakeproject.com which is where all of the cupcake recipes below would come from. If I cannot find someone with an open bottle of mead who is willing to donate to tablespoons I may have to change the frosting to a cinnamon one. So keep that in mind while voting.

Ingredients: Applesauce, apples, cinnamon, mead, honey

3. The "Better than sex cupcake"

No really, that's it's actual name. There are five different types of chocolate in this thing. If you want chocolate, vote for this. This is no ordinary cupcake.

Ingredients: Vanilla, chocolate, cocoa powder, salt, coffee, brandy(maybe), white chocolate

4. The "Yogurt and Honey Cupcake"

This is the cupcake to choose is you are tired of the heavy sweet flavors. It gets lightness from the yogurt in the batter and the fact that the frosting is yogurt (with a honey drizzle). Don't get me wrong, these are still sweet, just in a different way. If you want something interesting and different, this is the cupcake for you.

Ingredients: Geek yogurt, vanilla, honey, salt


So there you have it. The four choices for this week.  Choose wisely as you all have to eat them.