Caramel Apple Butter Cupcakes

I love everything about fall, including all the fall-inspired recipes. I had bookmarked these apple butter filled cupcakes a couple months ago. Now that fall has finally graced us with its presence, I have a good excuse to experiment with the recipe.

I even had some caramel apple butter in my cabinet. If you think apple butter is good, then you really need to try caramel apple butter.

I decided to try something new for the cake. I’ve been reading a lot about bakers doctoring up box mixes to make wonderfully fluffy white cakes. This recipe in particular had a ton of comments from people who had tried the recipe and loved it. I’m glad I got the opportunity to try it. The cupcakes give you the fluffiness of a box mix, but with more of a homemade taste.

I was originally going to try this with a box of vanilla cake, but couldn’t find any at my store. Does vanilla cake mix exist, or am I remembering incorrectly? Anyway, I went ahead and used the white cake mix called for in the recipe. According to some of the comments under the recipe, people have had good luck with a lot of different cake mix flavors.

Caramel Apple Butter Cupcakes:
White cake recipe from Recipe Girl

1 (18.25 ounce) box white cake mix
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup granulated white sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/3 cups water
2 Tablespoons vegetable or canola oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup sour cream
4 large egg whites
12 oz. apple butter

*Recipe says it makes 36 cupcakes, although I got closer to 30.
** Through reading the comments on Recipe Girl’s site, I found out that most companies now only sell 15-16 oz. box mixes. I actually bought two boxes & measured out the extra couple ounces. Some comments said they tried the recipe with one box and it turned out fine. Another commenter claimed to use a heaping cup of flour, a little over a cup of sugar, and 1 tsp. of baking powder to offset the loss of cake mix.

Preheat oven to 325°F. Whisk together cake mix, flour, sugar and salt. Add remaining ingredients and beat with hand mixer (I used my Kitchen Aid) for 2 minutes, or until well blended.

Fill cupcake tins about 1/2 to 2/3 full with batter. Spoon a heaping teaspoon full of apple butter into the center. Spoon enough batter in to cover the apple butter. Some follow the theory that cupcakes should be filled 2/3 full. Others claim 3/4. Either way, just remember to leave room for your apple butter.

Bake about 18 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Mine took closer to 20 minutes. Let cool before frosting.

Vanilla Buttercream
2 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
2 tablespoons heavy cream
1 -1.5 tsp. vanilla extract, to taste
Pinch of salt

Mix cream, vanilla and salt together in a small bowl. Using a stand mixer with a paddle attachment, beat the butter until creamy. Slowly add the confectioners' sugar until completely combined. Add the cream mixture and beat for 3 or 4 minutes until fluffy and smooth. (This can also be made with vanilla bean or vanilla bean paste.)

I finished the cupcakes by sprinkling the tops with a little cinnamon and sugar. I’m sure any number of toppings would work: candied pecans, candy pumpkins, candy corn, or even some meringue ghosts for Halloween.

Jayhawk Cupcakes 2.0

Remember how in my last post I said I might not attempt the Jayhawk cupcakes again because they were so time-consuming? Well, that lasted about two whole days. Since I made that statement, which in my defense probably wasn’t a true declaration, KU won Saturday night and will now play in the championship game. I figured that was as good a sign as any that I should try to improve the cupcakes.

I’m not going to repeat the basics here since I’ve already described those in the first cupcake post. In order to keep this somewhat short, I’ll just explain the changes.

First off, I need to point out that my husband had a big part in improving these cupcakes. Although he doesn't bake, he contributed a lot. (He also reads this blog and told me he's expecting an acknowledgment of his brilliant ideas.) He’s far more creative than I am and was responsible for designing the new beaks and eyes. He also came up with the idea to use pretzels to secure the head to the base and helped by cutting out the wings. By the end of this process, his attitude was a lot like mine when I finished the first batch. They look neat, but probably aren’t worth the hassle to make them again.

This batch was also helped by the fact I had time to run to Michael’s and buy actual cake decorating supplies. I was finally able to get real royal blue frosting by using a small canister of the Wilton gel dye. This is definitely closer to Jayhawk blue. (If you do make these, it's probably a good idea to warn the people eating them that this will turn their mouths blue.)

Instead of messing with frosting cookies for wings, I found a metal cookie cutter that looked a lot like a wing. They also had sugar paper in royal blue, so we were able to stamp out nice looking wings.

The eyes were made by using a serrated knife to cut the ends off of mini marshmallows. He then applied a blue dot using blue decorating gel. Lining all the eyes up on parchment paper let them dry evenly. They were also easy to peel off when it was time to apply them.

The beaks were still made out of Starburst, but this time my husband turned it into a bit of an art form. He used powdered sugar to keep the Starbursts from sticking while shaping the beaks. The finished beaks were placed in the freezer to harden until we were ready to place them in the cupcake. Although he made a piece to anchor the beak in, the biggest issue is still getting the beaks to stay secure in the head and not fall out over time.

This time we also used two pretzels to anchor the cupcakes to each other. I also used a pretzel like a popsicle stick in order to frost the heads and secure the heads to the base.

So, there you have it. Jayhawk cupcakes 2.0:

Next time I'm feeling ambitious, someone remind me that this is probably good enough:

So what did the Helpers think of all this kitchen activity? I think they were a bit nervous about all the Jayhawks in their kitchen.

Jayhawk Cupcakes

(This is the first attempt. For the improved version, see this post.)

You know those blog posts where I tell you that the recipe is totally easy and actually simpler than it looks? Well, this isn’t one of those times. These cupcakes took up my entire evening, required two different trips to the store, left me with blue and red stained fingers, and turned my kitchen into a complete disaster. I'm still finding frosting everywhere.

I should also warn you that this all happened because I saw a cute picture on Pinterest. I’d been warned that Pinterest is a major time waster. I’m guessing the people that told me this meant that you can spend hours looking at things and repinning them. In my case, I waste hours replicating recipes. One of the most infuriating things about that site is when I find something that looks really cool, only for it not to have a recipe attached. That is exactly what happened with these Jayhawk cupcakes, which I set out to replicate with nothing more than a single picture and absolutely no knowledge of where it came from.

After deciphering the picture, I thought that the body was probably an upside down cupcake placed on top of another cupcake. I thought the head was probably a cake pop, although I heard a really good theory today where it was suggested the head could also be a donut hole. I finally decided the beak must be a yellow starburst. I’m still not entirely sure I have the wings figured out, but I decided to use half a vanilla wafer for each wing. Now that all the parts were figured out, it should be easy, right? Nope, think again.

I don’t do a lot of baking with food coloring. If I had, I would have known that an entire bottle of royal blue liquid dye could go into a batch of white frosting and still come out baby blue. (However, my hands and fingernails had no problem staining dark blue.) What I had created was maybe North Carolina blue, but definitely not KU blue. (Had I done this before last week’s game, I might have considered it rather ominous.) I did a little research and found out that gel based dye is recommended for dark colors. That created the need for my second trip to the store. There was some improvement with the gel, but still not the royal blue I was hoping for. My poor Jayhawks were just going to have to be a little lighter. That would probably turn out to be the least of their problems.

I should probably back up and explain some of the basics. First, I made the cake pops. Most cake pop recipes I’ve seen are just crumbled cake or cupcakes mixed with either canned frosting or cream cheese. I let my cake cool before crumbling it all in a large bowl. Next I mixed in about one-third to one-half of a can of frosting. Next, I rolled the cake into balls and placed them on a cookie sheet in the fridge.

I made one batch of blue frosting and one batch of red frosting. I started with a vanilla buttercream.

• 2 tablespoons heavy cream
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• pinch of salt
• 2 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 2 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar

Mix cream, vanillas and salt together in a small bowl. Using a stand mixer with a paddle attachment, beat the butter until creamy. Slowly add the confectioners' sugar until completely combined. Add the cream mixture and beat for 3 or 4 minutes until fluffy and smooth.

I cut the tops off of the cupcakes to give them a flat surface. I placed one cupcake upside down on top of another, using a little frosting to stick them together.

I next attempted to frost them, which proved to be fairly difficult. I was having trouble getting my frosting smooth enough, which left some of the Jayhawks looking a little like they were molting.

Next I frosted the cake pop heads, which I had anticipated would be difficult. I stuck a toothpick in the bottom of each cake pop to hold it while I frosted. I figured I could also use the toothpick to secure it to the body. Not that this is surprising, but it turns out these are extremely difficult to frost.

The faces actually proved to be the most problematic. In the picture I was using, it appeared the Jayhawks had write frosting eyes with an M&M candy in the middle. I had bought some decorating gel for the eyebrows and figured I’d just use the blue gel for the eyes. I tried to place a white dot on the faces, but my frosting kept smearing & mixing with the red. I finally gave up and just tried the decorating gel. It wanted to string horribly and I ended up having to redo most of the faces. Some of the poor faces ended up looking somewhat sad or droopy.

For the beak, I cut down a starburst to a triangle, and then cut a slit in the middle. You’ll have to overlook this horrible picture, as it’s apparently impossible to get a decent picture of a yellow starburst.

I did the wings last. I cut vanilla wafers in half and frosted them blue. As you can tell in some of the pictures, I was getting fairly exhausted by that point and some of my wings may have gotten dipped in frosting more than actually frosted.

And here’s the finished product:

Granted, they need some work. I figured for a first attempt, they’re not all bad. My husband commented they look more like cute birds than fierce Jayhawks, which probably has a lot to do with the difficulty I had with the faces.

If I try these again (which may be a big if) I would have to look at some different options for food coloring. I’m wondering if it wouldn’t be possible to use some fondant to create a more uniform look for the eyes.

I’d made a small batch to test it out, so the few remaining Jayhawks went to work with my husband. He figured the KU fans would enjoy them and the KU haters would be ok with tearing them apart and devouring them. Everybody ends up happy.

Finally, here is one of my Helpers, who either thought the Jayhawks needed a fuzzy sweater, or saw them as easy prey. Those who ate the cupcakes can rest assured that she wasn't allowed any closer to them.