I’ve mentioned this before, but I’ve never really been much of a cake person. To me, the best desserts are ooey-gooey and rich and dense, not light and fluffy and dry, which is too often the case with cake. I’ll eat it (I mean, who do you think I am?) but I would rather celebrate my birthday and other important events in life with cheesecake, pie, brownies, cookies, or a big ol’ bowl of ice cream.
So, you ask, why am I starting off a post on cupcakes with a rant on how lame-o cake can be? Honestly, it’s to emphasize that when I say these apple cupcakes are incredible, I mean they are super duper insanely incredible. They’ve shot to the top of my short list of The Exceptions to my meh-cake rule, which prior to trying these included only carrot cake, flourless chocolate cake, pumpkin cake, and these blue moon cupcakes. It’s a short but mighty list, these kings of my cake world, and these apple cupcakes with brown sugar frosting have nestled themselves riiiiiight up in the middle of it all. They’re SO good.
Let’s talk apple cupcake details. The cake base is a spiced cake made with applesauce, which not only lends fantastic apple flavor, but also makes the cake so incredibly moist and hearty. I’m going to go ahead and say this is the main reason I love it so much – it’s not as light and airy as many cakes I’ve tried. And the other (no less important) half of the equation is this incredible brown sugar frosting. It’s actually called penuche frosting, but I figured if I used that in the title of the post people would be mighty confused (although it sounds cool, right?). It’s absolutely loaded with brown sugar caramel flavor, and I could not imagine a more perfect counter-part to these gorgeous apple beauties.
These apple cupcakes are fall in a single bite, and they’re wonderful. If you’re looking for some last-minute Thanksgiving dessert ideas, these would absolutely be a welcome addition to your Thanksgiving dessert spread. I can’t imagine a better way to celebrate the unofficial end of fall (because let’s be real, it’s definitely winter after Thanksgiving, right?) than with these gorgeous and incredibly flavorful cupcakes.
Now excuse me while I go devour three more.
- 2 cups (241 grams) all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp. baking soda
- ½ tsp. baking powder
- ½ tsp. salt
- 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
- ½ tsp. ground allspice
- ½ tsp. ground cloves
- ¾ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 1 ¼ cups (248 grams) granulated sugar
- 1 egg
- 2 cups (452 grams) unsweetened applesauce
- ½ cup butter
- 1 cup brown sugar
- ¼ cup milk
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- Preheat your oven to 325°F. Line 18 muffin tins with cupcake liners and set aside.
- In a medium-sized bowl combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, allspice, and cloves with a whisk.
- In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy (this will take a few minutes) using an electric hand mixer. Add the egg and combine again. Add 1/3 of the dry ingredient mixture to the butter/sugar/egg mixture, then mix to combine, then add 1/3 of the applesauce and combine, etc. continuing to alternate and add gradually until all ingredients are fully combined.
- Spoon evenly into prepared cupcake liners and bake for approximately 25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Set aside to cool completely.
- Once your cupcakes are cooled, make the frosting. In a small saucepan, melt the butter, then add the brown sugar and cook for 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Add the milk, then increase the heat to bring the mixture to a boil. Once it reaches a boil, remove the saucepan from the heat and allow the mixture to come to a lukewarm temperature.
- Once the mixture has cooled to lukewarm, add to a large bowl. Gradually, a little at a time, add the powdered sugar, beating continuously. Your mixture should start to thicken and resemble a frosting consistency. If you don’t have to add the full 2 cups of powdered sugar, you don’t have to – just add until it’s your desired thickness. (Mine took the full 2 cups.)
- Frost your cooled cupcakes and serve immediately.
- When making the frosting, really let your brown sugar/butter/milk mixture come to lukewarm temp – I rushed mine and mixed it in too hot and it was really hard to get it to come together. You don’t want to stick it in the fridge because then it will get too cold and make the frosting stiff, so just be patient and let the mixture come to a lightly warm temp.
- Also, this frosting makes enough to barely cover the cupcakes – if you want sky-high frosting tops, I would double the recipe.
Cake recipe adapted from Baked Explorations via Brown Eyed Baker and frosting adapted from Food 52.
Looking for more last-minute Thanksgiving dessert ideas?
Gooey Pumpkin Cake with Bourbon Vanilla Bean Whipped Cream
