Maple Spice Thumbprint Cookies Two Ways

So many cookies. I can’t stop. I won’t stop.

I think I ate more sugar than I did anything else this weekend. Saturday morning I tried to perfect a recipe for the cookbook, only to end up with cookies that were hard as rocks and dry as…sand? Or something else really dry? The point = gross. Later that day I completely changed the recipe and tried again. I peeked in on the cookies while baking, and they looked FABULOUS – puffy, chewy, perfect little rounds. Time played a cruel joke on me 2 minutes later when I took them out of the oven and saw completely flat, bubbly, burnt-edge blobs. Nope.

Gluten Free Coconut Almond M&M Cookies

Despite my epic sweet tooth, I’m not someone who regularly buys candy. Apart from the not-so sporadic impulse buy of Justin’s dark chocolate peanut butter cups, or Trader Joe’s dark chocolate peanut butter cups (okay, I really REALLY like peanut butter cups), I usually prefer to get my sweet fix through baked goods.

My whole outlook on candy changes when holiday M&Ms come out. For about a month, I like to forget that I generally try to avoid artificial dyes, and instead go all out on the Christmas-colored treats.

Rosemary Parmesan Drop Biscuits

Happy OFFICIAL holiday season! If you’ve read any part of my blog, you probably already know that this is my favorite time of year. To kick off the season, I dressed Teia up festively the morning after Thanksgiving (okay, I also did it on Thanksgiving). She’s pretty great at putting up with me. Poor cute little thing.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Lemon, Thyme, and Goat Cheese

Happy [almost] Thanksgiving! As is the case every year, my mind has already jumped to Christmas. This Buzzfeed list spoke directly to my heart. I’m totally one of those people. I keep a Santa doll up on one of our shelves all year because loving Christmas is part of who I am, so a subtle piece of Christmas should always be on display in my house. I know…

Ryan is a patient man.

Hard Cider Cupcakes with Caramel Whiskey Apples & Whiskey Buttercream (+ a blog birthday!)

I started this blog 2 years ago today, so today we eat celebratory cupcakes. Boozy cupcakes.

Since we only have a small sweet bit of autumn left, I combined the warm fall flavors of cider and cinnamon with caramel apples, and then added a bit of booze to, well, everything, because this is a celebration! Hard cider goes in the cake, and whiskey winds up in both the caramel apple filling and the buttercream. These are adult cupcakes, folks.

…adult cupcakes that can easily be made kid friendly, of course. The alcohol in the hard cider bakes out of the cupcakes, and you also cook the whiskey out of the caramel. If you want to make the cupcakes entirely alcohol free, you can substitute regular apple cider in the cake, and water for the whiskey in the apple filling. Since the whiskey is obviously not baked out of the frosting, you’ll want to either omit the whiskey, or swap it with heavy whipping cream (HIGHLY recommended), especially if you’re serving to little ones. I brought the second half of the batter to my parent’s house for a family dinner, and my nephews helped me make booze-free frosting for their cupcakes. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard my cute little nephews rave about dessert as much as they did while they were devouring these cupcakes.

These cupcakes are loosely inspired by my St. Patrick’s Day chocolate stout cupcakes with whiskey caramel and buttercream. You should try those too, but let’s not get distracted.

I usually feel like the cake portion of a cupcake is something you have to bite through to get to the good stuff (i.e. filling and frosting), but that is definitely not the case here. These cakes are fluffy, moist, and full of flavor from brown butter, cinnamon, dark brown sugar, vanilla, and hard cider. You could really just be done after you take these out of the oven; I ate one of the cupcakes plain – no filling or frosting – and it was divine.

Side note: If you’re the kind of person who doesn’t eat the “cupcake holes” that result from cupcake coring, I’m not sure I trust you.

No matter how tasty a cupcake is, I could never actually leave a whole batch naked without filling or frosting (for SHAME). These little dreams are filled with apple bites that are cooked in butter, sugar, and cornstarch until the liquid transforms into a cinnamon-spiced boozy caramel. The cloud of frosting on top is a simple, creamy cinnamon whiskey buttercream that’s beaten on high until the texture becomes super fluffy. The cinnamon notes that are dispersed through all elements of the cupcake make it taste so warm, comforting, and fall-ish.

Perhaps it’s the food blogger/baked goods FANATIC in me, but I feel that every milestone is better celebrated with a dessert. When I brought these into work and admitted to my coworkers that I made them in honor of my blog’s 2nd birthday, the general response was “Wow, you need to have a kid,” but, naturally, the mockery stopped when they started shoving their faces with the cupcakes. I understand it’s silly to celebrate a blog birthday with treats, but I’ll take any excuse I can to spend a Sunday afternoon coring cupcakes, making caramel, and piping on frosting…AND, if the cupcake making includes a half-empty can of Strongbow that needs finishing? Sign me up!

Anywho, whether this is the first time you’ve stumbled upon my blog, or if you’re one of the awesome people who subscribes to it, thank you SO much for being here! I know the recipes can be random; sometimes I’m making boozy cupcakes, sometimes I’m making healthy vegetarian meals, sometimes I pretend I’m vegan, and sometimes I get on a breakfast kick and post waffles, scones, and muffins for weeks. In order to make this blog as fun-to-read as possible, I would love it if you’d leave a comment about what you would like to see more of in the coming year!

Now go make some cupcakes!

Print Recipe

Hard Cider Cupcakes with Caramel Whiskey Apples & Whiskey Buttercream

Cinnamon spice cupcakes baked with hard cider, filled with whiskey caramel apples, and topped with a whiskey cinnamon buttercream. Warm, comforting, and perfect for fall!

Yield: 24 cupcakes

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 40 minutes

Ingredients:

Cinnamon Spice Hard Cider Cupcakes

• 1/3 cup butter
• 1 egg, room temperature
• 1 cup buttermilk, room temp
• 1 cup dark brown sugar
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/2 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 2 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tablespoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon baking soda
• 1 cup hard apple cider, room temperature*

Whiskey Caramel Apple Filling

• 3 tablespoons butter
• 2 large (or 3 small) Honey Crisp apples peeled, cored, and diced
• 1/4 cup dark brown sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon cornstarch
• 2 tablespoons whiskey**

Cinnamon Whiskey Buttercream

• 1 cup butter, at room temperature
• 3½ cups powdered sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1-2 tablespoons whiskey**

Directions:

For the Cupcakes

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. In a small saucepan, heat the butter over low-medium heat, whisking constantly. Once you see brown specks appear on the bottom, remove from the heat and continue whisking for 30 seconds. Pour into another bowl so that the butter doesn’t continue to cook (which could result in burning).
3. Once the butter is cool, add the buttermilk, egg, sugars and vanilla, and mix until well combined.
4. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, and baking soda.
5. Gradually add the flour to the wet ingredients, scraping down the sides of the bowl after each addition.
6. Once the flour is fully incorporated, stir in the hard cider, being careful not to over mix.
7. Line a muffin pan with liners, and spray them with non-stick spray. Fill each muffin tin slightly more than halfway with the batter.
8. Bake for 15-18 minutes, until a knife inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean.

For the Filling

1. Melt the butter in a medium-sized saucepan over medium heat. Add the apples, sugar, cinnamon, salt, and vanilla. Cook for about 10 minutes, until the apples are soft and have released their juices.
2. In a separate bowl, whisk together the whiskey with cornstarch, and then add to the pan with the apples and cook for about 3 minutes, until the liquid thickens. Set aside to cool.

For the Frosting

1. Cream the butter for about 30 seconds. Add the powdered sugar, cinnamon, and vanilla extract. Beat on medium speed until creamy.
2. Add the whiskey and beat on high for 2-3 minutes, until fluffy and whipped.

Final Assembly

1. Core each cupcake with a cupcake corer, or with a knife angled at 45-degrees (the shape you remove will be a cone shape). Fill the cupcake with apples, then top with buttercream. If you have leftover apples (this will depend on how much of the cupcake center you removed), top the frosting with more apples.

*I used Strongbow in the cupcakes, because it's my favorite hard cider. If you do not want to have alcohol in your cupcakes, regular cider should be fine.
**I used Jack Daniel's whiskey. If you want to forego the whiskey in this recipe, replace it with water in the apple filling, and either omit it in the frosting, or replace it with heavy whipping cream.