Thursday, June 10, 2010

An Apple A Day

I was feeling pretty creative the other night and had a hankering for some sort of holiday-ish dessert. Something warm and welcoming. Cinnamon and apples. Nom. So, I thought, "Why not create another conglomerate of sugary awesomeness?"
And, after 3 hours of baking, a monster was born.

Part 1: Create an outer shell to house contents of yum.

From the get-go, I knew I wanted to make a cupcake. But how to weave apples and cinnamon in? That would come later. First, the cupcake.

I wanted something light that had a warm flavor, but nothing overpowering. How about vanilla? Sold.

Amy Sedaris's Vanilla Cupcakes


Note: I only made 12 cupcakes in case this was a major disaster. And, really, what single girl needs more than 12 cupcakes at time? I gave away most of them anyway.

These cupcakes ended up being the perfect balance of fluffiness and warmth (I apologize for the overuse of all variations of the word warm.) to house the lovely gooeyness (is that a word?) I was about to impart to the world. Hats off to Amy. I'll have to check out more of her recipes.


Part 2: BRAINS (bwains?)

The brain is the core of any being. The behemoths need brains to move swiftly (or loudly) and be their normal predatory selves. In my extensive experience, monsters don't have super smart brains - at least not those in conventional horror stories. For me, however, a smart monster, while an anomaly, is the monster that wins and I say, screw the hero.

As I have mentioned: CINNAMON AND APPLES! APPLES AND CINNAMON!

They will be the brains.

Apple Crumble

I halved this recipe too and still had too much. I would suggest quartering it for only 12 cupcakes. If I had made 24, I think half this recipe would have worked out nicely.

I also baked the oatmeal topping separately so that I could just sprinkle it on top of the cupcakes. You probably need about an eighth of the recipe, to be honest.

So, now that I had the outer skin and the core of brainy goodness, I needed something to cover its head. Considering the potential heaviness of the inner core of the cupcake, I knew I'd need the lightest frosting possible. In walked the heavy cream and the whisk. I wish I had a "walked into a bar joke" right now.

(Side note: I just noticed that there are things called "whips" and things called "whisks" and they look the same on the Internets. More on this at a later time.)

Part 3: Where's his hat?!
 Whipped cream frosting was the only answer to this dilemma. It's light and fluffy and has a slight coolness to help balance out the warmth (WARMTH) of the rest of the cupcake. Let me say that making this definitely put me significantly closer to shelling out some dough for a hand mixer. I think I whisked for 20 minutes. Best workout ever if you want strong forearms.

Whipped Cream Frosting

But, wait! Here are all the pieces. How to assemble?

This time in steps! With pictures!

Step 1: Baking! (You know how to do this, right?)



Step 2: Mmmm, cupcakes...

 

Step 3: Apple Crumble (while the cupcakes cool) -- I almost forgot to mention that I mashed the apple crumble (without the crumble) up with a potato smasher. Didn't want the apples to be too chunky inside the cuppycake.



 Step 4: Surgery!

(Cut out little cores from the cupcakes so you can smoosh some filling in them. Only cut about 3/4 of the way down, you don't want the cupcake to fall apart when the wrapper comes off. *gasp*)

(FILL!)

(Replace the core, but cut off a little bit from the bottom since you now have to compensate for filling.)

Step 5: Haberdashery!

 (Whipped cream with vanilla and a little cinnamon)


Step 6: NOM!
 (Sprinkled crumble part of Apple Crumble recipe and a little cinnamon over the cupcakes)

I'm hoping for more Dr. Franky cupcakes in the future. And we'll try to give them clever names like, Cupcake: Redemption or Revenge of the Cupcake.


Icing: Tegan and Sara - Alligator Tears

3 comments:

  1. These were truly delicious. Getting to the filling was a pleasant surprise. Would test again! A+!!!

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  2. Yum! Yum! Yum! They look scrumptious--would love a taste :)

    Perhaps you would consider a re-do for Father's Day?

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  3. :D

    I will have to remake this for you! Maybe I can make them on Monday?

    ReplyDelete