The one with the Apple Crumble Cupcake Recipe

Now that Isabelle is a little older we have been spending more time baking, I’m not going to lie who doesn’t want to eat baked goods?  I’d eat them all day if I could but I don’t think my bank balance would cope with me having to splurge out on pants with an elasticated waist to accommodate my ever-expanding waistline. As well as the yummy baked goods, I love spending time in the Kitchen with Isabelle scooting around my feet and doing her best impression of helping.

Having received lots of baking materials and amazing cookery books for Christmas, it was about time that I put the to their purpose. So my mission was to bake cupcakes, we even invited Ashley from Coffee and Cakes to join us in our epic baking session.  Now the hardest part was deciding what to make, with so many mouth-watering recipes to hand from Cox Cookies and Cakes the recipe book, eventually I settled on two of my favourite desserts that had been skilfully recreated into masterpieces of cupcakes. Apple Crumble cupcake and also Lemon Meringue cupcake. Mouth watering already? Just wait until you see the final result!

Here it is, the Apple Crumble Cupcake Recipe

It all started with a pile of ingredients (listed below) to make 12 cupcakes

Firstly you have the sponge mixture

100g Unsalted Butter, softened ( leave it out for an hour at room temperature and it should do the trick)

200g Soft Brown Sugar

2 medium sized eggs

350g Self Raising Flour

2 Cooking apples, peeled, cored and chopped.

1tsp Ground Cinnamon

½ tsp Bicarbonate of Soda

(Optional icing sugar to dust, I didn’t bother mainly due to laziness and also because I just wanted to eat them)

 And then we have the ever so important crumble topping

50g Plain Flour

50g Soft Brown Sugar

½ tsp Ground Cinnamon

40g Unsalted Butter (make sure it’s cold, we don’t want soft butter to make our crumble)

Now a quick tip, preheat your oven to 200°c (180° if fan assisted) so that the oven is at the right temperature for when you put your cupcakes in.

Now first things first make your crumble topping, to do this add the flour, sugar, cinnamon followed by the butter (chop it up first to make this bit easier) into a large bowl. Gently rub the mixture together using your fingertips and gradually it will develop into a mixture that resembles breadcrumbs.  Don’t worry though it took me a while to get there after minutes of me saying “it’s not working” keep at it, it does eventually get there.

The next step is to prepare your apples, once they have been peeled, cored and chopped pop them into a saucepan along with the cinnamon.  Pop them on the hob and keep stirring the mixture on a medium heat until the apples soften and start to lose their form.  This should result in a mushy apple mess in your pan (think apple sauce).  Once at this stage take it off the heat and pop your pan to one side to allow the mixture to cool. (We shall be coming back to this later to add the bicarbonate of soda)

Now to make the yummy cupcake batter, in another large bowl cream together the sugar and butter until it forms a soft pale mixture then add the two eggs. Mix it together until it forms a runny mixture. At this stage you are ready to go back to your apples (the ones you prepared earlier)

To the apples add the ½ tsp. of bicarbonate of soda and fold it into the mixture (stare in amazement as the mixture fizzes when it comes into contact with the bicarb) Once you are happy that they are well mixed you can then go and sift your flour ready to add to the cupcake batter.

To your batter add the flour and apple mixture slowly and alternating between the two whilst stirring the batter mix. Are you still with me?

Once it is mixed well it’s the exciting part to add the mix to the cupcake cases. Distribute evenly between the cases using a spoon, I preferred a teaspoon as it gave me better control of over how much mixture I was putting into the cases.  Once you are happy with the amount of mixture in the cases you can add a sprinkle of crumble topping on top.

Place them into your preheated oven an bake for 20 – 25 minutes until the topping is golden brown or until you can pierce them with a skewer and the skewer come out clean and free from cupcake batter.

Now the bit that I didn’t like, pop them to one side to cool and stare until you can devour them. I waited until they were at a temperature where I wouldn’t burn myself. I would imagine that they are great with custard but they are certainly very yummy on their own

I could stuff my face with these all night long