Ready for Fall!

Goodbye 90 degree weather, hello my favorite weather!

I love love love when FALL weather starts rolling around, the breezy air, the sound of leaves crunching under your feet, pulling out those cute jackets that have been stuffed in your closet all summer, and most of all, caramel Apples!

Well, I wanted to try a new flavor cupcake and since the weather calls for it, I thought I needed something "fall flavor". Caramel apples were the first thing that popped into my head and the thought of making homemade caramel for the first time really got me excited! I found a recipe on Java Cupcake and got started!

(Oh yeah, I didn't want to make all 16 so I cut this recipe in half. Didn't want to have to eat them all :) )

What you will need

For the cupcakes:

3 medium granny smith apples
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup apple juice
1 teaspoon vanilla

For the caramel: *even though I cut the cupcake recipe in half, I made alllll the caramel :)

2 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
1-1/2 tablespoon light corn syrup
2/3 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoon unsalted butter, room temperature

For the frosting:

8oz cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, room temperature
1 tsp vanilla
4 cups powdered sugar, sifted



To get started:

1. Preheat oven to 350.

2. Wash apples then cut in half and core them. (I cut mine in 3-4 pieces) Place on a baking sheet and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar.

3. Bake for 35-40 minutes until soft. Remove the apples from the oven and let cool slightly.

They started oozing, I knew they were done!

4. Remove the peels and mush the apple with the back of a fork. Measure out 1 cup of apple mush and set aside to cool.

5. Combine flour, sugar, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, and salt in a medium sized bowl and whisk to combine.

6. In an electric mixer with the paddle attachment, mix together the eggs, oil, and vanilla.  Add the cooled apple mush and mix just to combine.

7. Add the flour and apple juice in three parts, beginning and ending with the flour. Mix until just combined. 

8. Scoop into cupcake papers about 2/3 full.

9. Bake for 15 minutes, rotate pan 180 degrees, then bake 3-5 more minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

To make the caramel:

1. Measure sugar, water and corn syrup in a large pot and stir just to combine ingredients.
2. Turn to medium-high heat and without stirring, bring sugar mixture to a boil.  Boil 10-15 minutes until sugar turns an amber color.

3. Remove from heat and stir in the butter with a whisk.
4. Wait about 30 seconds and slowly stir in the heavy crème.
5. Scrape sides of pan and mix until thoroughly combined.  Pour into a heat safe glass bowl/measuring cup to cool.

CARAMEL! YUM!




















To make the frosting:
1. In an electric mixer with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter and cream cheese.
2. Add vanilla. (I added some of the apple juice as well)
3. One cup at a time, add the powdered sugar mixing after each. Scrape down the bowl as needed.


As my apples were cooking in the oven, I decided to make some fall festive decorations. First I started by making some trees! I used peanut butter flavored candy melts and some almond bark to make trees and then used yellow, green and orange flower shaped sprinkles as the leaves...

That leaf you see up top? Well that is something I have been wanting to try for awhile now. I went outside, picked out the most perfect leaf (if there is such a thing) and painted it with some of the candy melts. I also made a chocolate worm to put on top of my cupcakes :)

Now lets assemble these things huh!? Cut out the middle of the cupcakes and fill with caramel. (I did half with caramel and half with the frosting) like so..

Replace the tops and with the ones that had caramel on the inside, I frosted the tops. I also pretty much attacked them with green sprinkles to make it look like a good ol' granny smith apple! For the ones with frosting inside, I topped with the caramel, trying to make it look like a caramel apple. I got a little to antsy and I think I should have let the caramel sit a bit longer so it wasn't so runny so these ones didn't turn out as well as I would have liked them to, but they were still yummy!

Enjoy my decorations!

That is one worm that I WOULD want in my apple :)

The leaf! So happy how it turned out and cant wait to make some more!

Trees turned out so good!

Couldn't have said it better myself.

And just in case this isn't close enough....

;)

Now go be festive and try out your own caramel apple cupcakes!

I partied @

Totally Tasty Tuesday's!

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Crazy Sweet Tuesday!

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Sweet Treats Thursday!

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Frugal Friday!

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http://www.crumbsandchaos.blogspot.com/!

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Sweets for a Saturday!

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Sharing Sundays!

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Falling for Crafts Challenge #2!!!