November 6, 2021
Toffee Apple Cupcakes!
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Easy and autumnal toffee apple cupcakes with a brown sugar apple sponge, toffee buttercream frosting and more!
Toffee apple cupcakes
It’s bonfire season, and I am 100% in the mood to get really cosy, and absolutely enjoy life. I love everything about this time of year, so I really want to make sure I post a recipe for you guys that would fit the mood… hello toffee apple cupcakes.
This is a recipe that has been requested so many times that I can’t actually keep up. I have a delicious toffee apple loaf cake that so many of you have been baking recently, but you all want the cupcake version – so here it is!
Sponge
I went for a very similar bake to the loaf cake because I just adore it so much. A dark brown soft sugar sponge, filled with apple chunks – creating such a soft and delicious sponge that you could to be honest eat as it is.
The dark brown soft sugar is such a wonderful flavour that creates an almost toffee like flavour on it’s own! If you want something a little lighter and less deep, you can use light brown soft sugar instead to get a lighter caramel flavour, but something that still suits the apple!
Apples
For the apple in these toffee apple cupcakes, I used bramley/cooking apples. I love to use these in baking because it means you still get a decent texture for the apple in the bake – if you use normal eating apples they can get a bit sweet and soft.
I always seem to have a mass of apples as my parents have a tree and somewhere close to my office has a tree also so I love to bake with them. I opted for a apple slice topping too as I do love to stick to theme!
Buttercream frosting and toffee drizzle
For the buttercream frosting, I again used the same idea as the toffee apple loaf cake – but using a toffee buttercream frosting! You can either make your own toffee sauce by using the recipe from my sticky toffee bakes (which is what I did!), or you can use shop bought! There is no shame in shop bought sauce.
Yes, toffee brings more sweetness to the bake – but a toffee apple themed bake is always going to be more sweet. I always use block unsalted butter in my buttercream (which is just so important – especially if you are adding toffee sauce!).
You can, however, to cut the sweetness, use slightly salted block butter. I don’t generally do this, but if you are worried about the sweetness you can always give it a go. Just make sure to not use a margarine or baking spread for the frosting as you will get soup.
For these toffee apple cupcakes I used homemade sticky toffee sauce as I said – and it creates the most beautiful drizzle. I couldn’t work out what I wanted to do for the decoration, but using my favourite piping tip as always was a start.
Piping and decoration
I often get messages with people struggling with piping tips – and often its because they are too small. The piping tip I use in these cupcakes is just the dream to work with! I also think using good quality piping bags really helps because its easier to work with!
With a bit of dried apple for decoration (fresh apple would brown too quickly and look a little weird), and a drizzle of toffee sauce – you have your toffee apple cupcakes! Oh and if you want the same baking cupcake cases I used, you can find them here!! I hope you enjoy the recipe as much as I did – enjoy!! X
Toffee Apple Cupcakes!
Ingredients
Cupcakes
- 250 g cooking apples (peeled + chopped weight)
- 150 g unsalted butter
- 150 g dark brown brown sugar (+25g extra)
- 150 g self raising flour
- 3 Medium eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Buttercream
- 200 g unsalted butter (room temp) (not stork)
- 400 g icing sugar
- 75 ml toffee sauce
Decoration
- 50 ml toffee sauce
- dried apple
Instructions
Cupcakes
- Preheat your oven to 180ºC/160ºC fan and line a 12 hole muffin tray with muffin cases or put 12 baking cups onto a flat tray!
- Peel and core the apples, cube the apples into about 1cm (small) pieces.
- Put the apples into a bowl, and cover with the 25g of dark brown soft sugar. Mix it up so all the apple pieces are covered and leave to the side.
- Beat together the unsalted butter/stork and the dark brown soft sugar until light and fluffy.
- Add in the self raising flour, eggs, and vanilla extract and beat until smooth.
- Fold the apple mixture into the cake mix and spoon into your cupcake cases.
- Bake the cupcakes in the oven for 20-24 minutes, or until baked.
- Once baked, transfer to a rack to cool completely.
Buttercream
- Beat the room temperature unsalted butter for a few minutes until really light and supple.
- Add in the icing sugar and beat fully.
- Add the toffee sauce into the mixture and mix for 5 minutes until really light and fluffy.
Decoration
- Using a 2D Closed Star Piping Tip, pipe the buttercream onto the cupcakes.
- Drizzle on the toffee sauce, and add a piece of dried apple per cupcake.
Notes
- I used the toffee sauce from this sticky toffee cake recipe!
- For this recipe I used:
- This piping tip
- These baking cups
- These piping bags
- If you are using a muffin tin, I recommend this one!
- When buying the apples, buy above the 250g as thats the chopped and peeled weight. You need to go for about 400g worth unpeeled, to make sure that its enough!
- This cake will last in an airtight container for up to 3 days!
ENJOY!
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J x
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These were lovely. My oven took 27 minutes and cut one open to see how they looked – very wet even though they were cooked through.
I put them back in the (now off but still hot) oven and left the cakes in there to dry out a little bit, maybe 5-10 minutes. They turned out perfect.
Maybe should have dried the apples out a bit before I baked them but either way, an easy fix
I did these with brown butter buttercream and it was like a little apple pie cake.
These were delicious! I also added some cinnamon and nutmeg which added some subtle spice to it.
hi i say that this recipe takes around 2 hours and 37 mins. i am aiming to make this but i only have around 1 hour 30-45min do you think this would be possible to make in this time schedule
Hi does anyone know if the apples were left out of the recipe do they need to be replaced with something else
Hi
I want to try the recipe but you mentioned dark brown sugar.. Can I use any type of sugar?
Thank you.
It’s best to use dark brown soft sugar or light brown soft sugar!
Hi Jane
Your post was my first email I jumped too! WOW!!! As usual it exceeded expectations! Oh gosh they look full of deliciousness 😘and I must make. If I wanted to buy the sticky toffee sauce could you suggest your favourite one and possibly add a link, doing the same for the apples to decorate and fudge pieces used in your sticky toffee loaf cake and sticky toffee cake. I will be baking 👩🏻🍳those now too, as my taste buds have just started popping looking at them! Many thanks. 😋
Can anyone help with my query on toffee sauce, fudge pieces and dried apples to decorate. Not had a reply as yet. Keen to make seem very delicious!👍💕