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One cupcake taster closed her eyes to savor every bite. Another chose to eat this as his first piece of cake in 3 months and did not regret the choice. I ate one fresh out of the oven and it was so good I was scared that frosting it would screw it up somehow. It didn't. It just made it even better! This may be my favorite cupcake yet.
This week's cupcake was inspired by the Jewish New Year (Rosh Hashana). Could the holy connection have anything to do with how good they ended up being? On Rosh Hashana it is a tradition to eat apples dipped in honey praying that God will grant us a sweet new year. Apples with honey are delicious on thier own. Give it a try if you have never done so. I turned one of my non-Jewish friends onto this and it became her son's favorite snack. The bride and groom are not Jewish, but they are getting married on the secular new year. Perhaps they would like it to be sweet with an apple and honey cupcake?
. I take issue with the fact that there aren't really 500 cupcakes in this book. Lots of the "cupcakes" are muffins and some of the items they count as unique cupcakes are simply a recipe they already listed, but with ingredient substitutions. However, since I liked the recipe I tried so much, I may have to think more positively about the book.- 2 sticks butter
- 1 C + 2 T sugar
- 2 C Flour
- 4 Eggs
- 1.5 C Applesauce (unsweetened)
- 1.5 t cinnamon
- 1 C finely chopped apples (I used Fuji)
The Frosting
- 1/4 butter
- 3 T soy milk (I'm sure you could use milk. I just happened to have soy milk in the house.)
- 2 T Mead
- 2+ cups confectioners' sugar
As I worked on creating my honey swirl, I began to feel like I was Goldilocks and had left my house to 3 bears. The bears, of course, were honey bears. When did honey start coming in bear format? Check these out! They even have bow ties.
- One bear's honey was too empty.
- The next bear's honey was also too empty.
- And the last bear's honey, well that was too empty too.
Why did Miss Goldilocks allow all her honey bears to reach such sad states? Probably, the same reason she left those 3 bowls of porridge on the table: she was in a hurry. It was too much work to get the honey out of the bottom of each bear. The problem with most of the bear shaped containers is that they can't be easily stored upside down.
Anyway, to speed up the honey removal, all 3 bears went into the microwave. The warm, more liquidy honey was poured right out of the bear to a decorating bag with a small tip and piped onto the cupcakes. Unfortunately, because the honey was still toasty, it often just melted into the frosting as opposed to making a defined swirl.
The good news was that everyone did live happily ever after because even the ones that didn't have the swirl looked neat and tasted great.
The moral of the story is to either
a) buy a new bear,
b) have more patience for the honey to come out of the bear, or
c) don't use bear honey at all.
11 comments:
Wow... I love the story and inspiration behind this cupcake and love how you turned all that into a delicious treat. A fantastic post and a fantastic recipe with a nice picture to boot. Props!
I love how the frosting looks-almost like frothy apple juice or something.
I have an amazing chocolate & cinnamon cake recipe, but it's a bit long to make: you have to bake it layer by layer, but the visual result is simply amazing, and it tastes really good too. If you want it, just e-mail me (see web page).
i made these last night and they came out tasting delicious, but very dense. i followed the recipe exactly, so i am wondering what went wrong. is it supposed to be 4 eggs? maybe it should just be 2?
How do you tell someone what you think about their cupcake when they tell you that they are the best they ever made and are fantastic? I doubt any answer would be correct except agreement.
With that being said, I thought this 'cupcake' was very good. Tasty and delicious. My biggest issue was how dense it was. A little much for my taste for a cupcake. It felt more like a heavy muffin or pound cake then a cupcake. But to be fair, I tend to sway towards the light and fluffy cakes. It was very good, but felt more like a breakfast food to me. All of the tasters with me agreed, but all thought it tasted great.
Cake: A-
Icing: A-
Overall Taste: A-
Appearance: B+
Overall: A-
Great item and super tasty
Garrett and LittleIvy - Thanks so much!!
Jordi - I'm glad you liked them! I don't think you did anything wrong, they were just very dense cupcakes. I enjoyed the texture because it seemed like pie filling in cupcake format. If you like it lighter, I'm sure you could achieve that. I think you would have to use less apples though. I think with all those apples in there, it is bound to be heavy.
I do disagree with Kafka's muffiny comment though. Muffins tend to be more crumbly. This was really moist, just not light and fluffy.
Hi Stef
These look fantastic. I love that honey swirl. These look like cupcakes to bake on a cold Autumn evening and eat by the fire with warm apple cider. A very comforting recipe.
I was really excited to try these cupcakes, especially after reading how good people thought they were. However, I used the exact ingredients you posted but these were so moist they ended up being impossible to eat as cupcakes. They had to be eaten with a fork, haha. Still delicious though. I know you wrote how they were moist, but mine had a layer of juice on top (bubbled up because of the oven) that I had to mop up. Eek!
Alysha - Hmm... sorry that happened to you! Extra cleaning is no fun. I wonder why that happened: type of apple? oven temp? liners filled to high? Don't know.
hi! i just made these cupcakes, with several modifications, so that might be my problem...but...i was wondering if there's supposed to be any leavening in them. your other cupcakes have salt, baking soda and baking powder in them, but not these. i'm not familiar with all the customs of rosh hashana, though- are leavening agents not allowed?
You know, this was a recipe that I took directly from the book 500 Cupcakes. It definitely has a different texture than lots of the other cupcakes that I've made - super dense. You're right that some leavening would make it more fluffy. And no, there is no rule against it for the holiday.
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