Apple Pie Cupcakes

My love of baking stems from a very early age when I would spend holidays in the kitchen with my Great Grandma helping her make apple pie.  She would always let me make my own little pie with her left over crust.  I can still taste my own little homemade pie and how proud of it I was.  I think thats why I love having my daughter help me with my baking now. Over the years I have made many pies and when my husband and I were dating I impressed him with my apple pie.  For some reason or another I have not made one since.  My husband is convinced I tricked him into thinking he would have a life of homemade pies.  One day I will start making them again but for now he will have to live with cupcakes.  Its a hard life for him.

For this reason and because im into apples this week I thought I would mix a cupcake with an apple pie.  I found inspiration from the blog site Annie's Eats: http://annies-eats.net/2008/09/26/apple-pie-cupcakes/
I love her idea of cutting out a cone shape from the cupcake with a paring knife and putting apple pie filling into it.  I then used a combination of different recipes to create my own apple pie cupcake combination.  For the cupcake recipe I used a brown sugar and cinnamon cupcake and replaced a third of the butter with applesauce to give it a more apple flavor.  For the filling I found an AMAZING apple pie filling (and I do mean amazing).  This recipe is for a huge amount of apples so that you can freeze a large amount of the filling but I simply scaled the recipe down to the amount of apples I had on hand.  To do this change the number of servings you need and Allrecipes will do the calculation for you.  For the icing I used my buttercream icing and added cinnamon and nutmeg to it.  I then made little apples out of pastry and brushed melted butter and cinnamon and sugar on them and then baked them in the oven for 180 degrees C for 10 minutes.

There really isn't too much to say about these cupcakes other than WOW.  These are good.  I may be inspired to make pies again after these.  (Do not tell my husband I said this though as he may get his hopes up!) Its a very good thing I am giving these away because I might be waking in the middle of the night for a midnight snack.

These cupcakes are going to a couple that my husband and I have gotten to know in the last couple of years.  The husband has been hugely involved in organizing my husbands hockey team which is a big commitment on his part and also a huge commitment from his wife.  They have had a roller coaster of a year and I thought that these cupcakes were long overdue.

Brown Sugar and Cinnamon Recipe:
75g butter softened
50g applesauce (if you do not have applesauce you can replace it with butter)
3/4 c brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 1/4 cup all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder, sifted
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon, sifted
1/2 cup milk

Preheat oven to 160 degrees C.  Cream butter, brown sugar and vanilla for about 10-12 minutes with an electric mixer.  Add applesauce and beat for another 2-3 minutes.  Add the eggs one at a time beating well after each addition.  Add the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and milk and beat until just combined.  Spoon into 12 cupcake liners and bake for 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

For the stewed apples recipe go to: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Apple-Pie-Filling/Detail.aspx?prop31=1

For the buttercream frosting add 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon and 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg to my previously listed vanilla buttercream icing.