Cran-Apple Spice Cupcakes

Due to watching an abundant amount of Food Network's, Cupcake Wars, I was inspired to put a creative spend on the ordinary cupcake. Low and behold, the first of many flavors that I have come up with is the Cran-Apple Spice cupcake!  

The upcoming fall season has played a big role in inspiring such a flavor of a cupcake. For some reason spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger smell like fall. And the brightness and crispness of apples and cranberries look and taste like fall. Mix all these inspirations of fall together and what do you get...a very tasty cupcake!

Secret is you (well speaking for myself) can get away with eating these cupcakes for breakfast. They're so light (in taste that is, not so sure about calories) and it doesn't taste like your eating a cup full of sugar (as I find with most store bought cupcakes). So go ahead and try one for yourself...check out the recipe below.


Ingredients

Cupcake Batter (makes about 15 large cupcakes):

• 2 cups sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
• 1/4 cup orange juice
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 3 cups plus 3 tablespoons of cake flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 3 cups of finely chopped  Granny Smith apples (about 2-3 large apples)
• 1 cup shredded coconut
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries
• 1 cup chopped pecans

Spiced Buttercream Frosting:

• 1 stick of unsalted butter softened
• 1 package of cream cheese
• 1 tablespoon of orange juice
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 4 cups of confectioners sugar
• store bought caramel sauce for decoration (optional)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350. Line a cupcake pan sized for large cupcakes with large cupcake liners.

Combine sugar, eggs, oil, orange juice, and vanilla extract in a bowl.

In a separate bowl sift cake flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger together. Then add these dry ingredients to the sugar, egg, oil, orange juice, and vanilla extract mixture. Next, fold in the apples, pecans, coconut, and dried cranberries.

Fill cupcake liners half way with batter. To ensure an easy an clean job use a regular sized ice cream scooper when filling the cupcake liners with batter.

Bake for about 30 mins. or until toothpick comes out clean. If you're baking a smaller sized cupcake the baking time will likely be less. Remove cupcakes from pan and allow them to cool on a cooling rack.

For the frosting,  mix the butter, cream cheese, orange juice, cinnamon, and vanilla extract together with an electric mixer. Slowly add the confectioners sugar a cup at a time. Frost cooled cupcake then drizzle caramel sauce over the top.

Enjoy!