Total Apple Yumminess!

Again........I am certain that if I searched this idea it would NOT be original. At the same time - when the thought occured to me it was totally new in my head. Of course if you watch ANY cake or cupcake show on TV it is completely obvious that if you can stick it in a cupcake at this point and time Someone Has Done It!

For me to CASE (copy and steal everything) is not a shameful thing - doing it builds up my own confidence in doing something - what I mean is ...... if I see that you have done something so completely wonderful I would like to see if I can do that wonderful thing too. Once I build my skill at doing something I can master without having to recreate the wheel....then I can move on to original works of my own art with confidence. I know there are folks out there that do not agree with that - they feel that if it is a copy of something else then you aren't really showing that you have the ability to truly create. To that I say...."eh".....the world is how many years old? Someone has likely been there - so don't stress yourself out (my husband might cringe and giggle that I said that - he so doesn't believe that I don't stress - and he is right, but I am stressing about perfection, not about creativity credit - TOTALLY different).

Now on the day of these cupcakes we were both stressing about something not cake related. I came downstairs and found water all over the floor. Thinking someone had been messing with the water button on the fridge I went to get a towel. Then as I did that I began to think that Dave was the only one up after me the night before and unless he got giddy on treats before bed it didn't make sense that he would play with the water button. So as I laid the towel down I opened the freezer door and found a frozen waterfall that was dripping. Our ice maker had decided to go bezerk (how do you spell beserk? bezerk? - oh well phonically you can read that right?). Woke Dave up - began to dismantle the freezer contents and look for the problem. Ice maker.

There were tons of things thawed out........some thrown away - others saveable. And then there were the 5 bags of peeled & cup up pie making apples I had put in before winter came (like we are the Ingalls right?). What to do with them? Pie? No. Crisp? Yum. Cupcakes? Hmmmmm.....

What made the cupcake idea the winner? My new cupcake huller. Just fresh from the store bought for my by my dad for my birthday!! Yes!! I needed something to fill the cupcakes I was longing to use my huller on.

Cupcakes baked - Huller out - simple as apple pie - place into the cupcake - twist - pull out.

Then I dump them into a bowl - originally the idea was for time saving - so I didn't have to twist around and put them in the trash to save my ass (literally)........but then I began to realize that kids like to pop these little pieces in their mouths. So we don't have them often - but they are fun when we did. Probably how donut holes started.

But this pictures shows what the BEST part of making these cupcakes was. The Ginormous vat of apples baking..........yummmmmmmyyyyyyy........all appley and cinnamon and brown sugar with just a smidge of butter to keep them from sticking (you don't really need an entire stick ya know - just a few chunks).

This was the reason that it made it most fun - the house was filled with this yummy smell. Way Way Way better then any candle you can get at the store.............

Once it was cooled off I popped the batch in shifts into the food processor and got rid of the slices and made it a nice, midly chunky, apple sauce like texture. Then took an icing bag out and began to fill the cupcakes................topped them off with some Cinnamon Buttercream.........

and just because some days I have the ability to Over Achieve.....whipped up some homemade from scratch (yes, I realize homemade means "from scratch" - but it was hard and I deserve the double) Caramel.........and drizzled it on top.

Ummmmm Yummmmmm!!! I called them Apple Pie Cupcakes. We were headed to a gathering and called ahead to see if I could bring these and if the hostess thought people would like some Apple Pie Cupakes. My friend, Pennie, said that it was against the law in the US not to like Apple Pie. You get kicked out of the country - which made me think - Red, White & Blue cupcake papers........and so it was........but that night only Pennie got the connection to the papers being all about Apple Pie and Patriotism.......oh well - not everyone can be as brilliant as us.

These cupcakes turned out to be the BOMB. I farmed out a few of the extras to neighbors because the apple filling made more then I could take to friends that night - and I ended up getting folks asking me to make them for other events - SCORE!! Winnner!!

So.......just in case you didn't read the whole post (cheater)........these cupcakes were White cake with Apple Pie filling and Cinnamon Buttercream touched by Caramel sauce. Delish!!