Tiny cupcakes, big treat: no one can resist these apple and cinnamon cupcakes with salted caramel frosting!
Taste and Occasion
If one pastry fits perfectly into fall, it's these delicious apple salted caramel cupcakes. Moist dough with pieces of fruit is followed by a creamy topping, sweet caramel sauce, and crunchy decorations. Sounds delicious? It is - I promise! As much as I like grandma's classic cakes like the legendary apple pie, her apple crumble cake, or apple strudel - sometimes I want something different. Like these salted caramel cupcakes with apples and cinnamon.
Ingredients
My recipe for cupcakes with caramel topping is based on the regular muffin recipe. In combination with that, I have oriented myself to the famous chocolate alternative. The cupcakes are decorated with a heavenly, easy salted caramel frosting. It consists of cream cheese and chocolate coating. The remarkable thing about my salted caramel apple cupcakes is that I prepared them with Callebaut's Belgian Caramel Chocolate Gold. Do you know the Belgian chocolate coating? They not only have a different quality than the standard products from the supermarket, which you notice when melting. It is also the only couverture in the world that, in addition to its golden color, has a perfect, natural toffee aroma. By the way, the callets taste way too good, not only in the apple cupcakes with caramel - also pure! So a 2.5-kilo pack is not a bad idea 😉 … But they are also available in 400-gram bags.
How to make the Salted Caramel Cupcakes
Fancy these salted caramel cupcakes? Ready, set, go! Preheat the oven to 360°F/180°C, peel the apple, and cut it into small pieces. Then melt the chocolate drops and whisk the wet ingredients (melted butter, eggs, and milk) in a bowl. Now, mix the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, cinnamon, sugar, and salt), add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and the melted chocolate coating, and mix everything briefly but vigorously. Finally, fold in the apple pieces.
Then, pour the dough into muffin cups and place them in a muffin tray. Bake for about 20 minutes, and then let cool completely. Meanwhile, prepare caramel sauce to drizzle over the cupcakes, if desired. For the frosting, melt the chocolate coating, stir until smooth and let cool. After this, beat cream cheese with cinnamon and salt until smooth. Stir the couverture briskly into the cream cheese mixture. Stir in some sifted powdered sugar if you want the cream sweeter.
In the end, chill the frosting briefly, then pipe it onto the cupcakes with a large star-shaped nozzle. Sprinkle with chocolate decorations before serving. Enjoy your autumnal snack!
Top Tip
The absolute highlight in the dough, the frosting, the caramel sauce, and the golden couverture itself is a good pinch of salt. Please do not forget it under any circumstances! It makes the apple cupcakes with caramel better than they already are.
Recipe Card
Salted Caramel Cupcakes
Ingredients
For the dough
- 250 grams (2 cups) all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 90 grams (7 ½ tablespoons) brown sugar, or coconut sugar
- 1 pinch salt
- 130 grams (⅔ cup) butter, liquid
- 2 eggs, large
- 120 mililiter milk
- 70 grams (⅓ cup) couverture, e.g. Callebaut Gold
- 100 grams (7 tablespoons) apple, peeled weighed, chopped small
For the frosting
- 180 grams (⅘ cup) couverture, e.g. Callebaut Gold
- 200 grams (1 cup) cream cheese, preferably full fat
- ¼ teaspoon (⅓ teaspoon) cinnamon
- 2 pinches salt
- 2 tablespoons powdered sugar, to taste
- 1 tablespoon caramel sauce, optional
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 360°F/180°C. Peel the apple and cut it into small pieces. Then melt the chocolate drops and whisk the wet ingredients (melted butter, eggs, and milk) in a bowl. Mix the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, cinnamon, sugar, and salt).
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and the melted chocolate coating and mix everything briefly but vigorously. Finally, fold in the apple pieces.
- Pour the dough into muffin cups and place them in a muffin tray. Bake for about 20 minutes, and then let cool completely.
- Meanwhile, prepare caramel sauce to drizzle over the cupcakes, if desired.
- For the frosting, melt the chocolate coating, stir until smooth and let cool. Beat cream cheese with cinnamon and salt until smooth. Stir the couverture briskly into the cream cheese mixture. If you want the cream sweeter, stir in some sifted powdered sugar.
- Chill the frosting briefly, then pipe it onto the cupcakes with a large star-shaped nozzle. Sprinkle with chocolate decorations before serving.
Notes
- The cupcakes taste best with caramel golden couverture and brown sugar. However, you can also use regular white couverture and white sugar if necessary.
- For the optional caramel sauce to drizzle over the frosting, melt 20g of sugar in a small saucepan over medium heat without stirring. Then add another 20g of sugar and melt without stirring. Once golden brown, slowly add ½ teaspoon butter and 50ml cream (may become a bit solid) and simmer and stir until completely dissolved.
- The sauce will become even more solid in the refrigerator.
- The amount of frosting and sauce depends on how lavishly the cupcakes are to be decorated.
- For example, chockrocks or mini chocolate crisp pearls are suitable for sprinkling.
Ingredient substitutions
Variations
Here's how to make the apple cupcakes with salted caramel perfect: I usually refine the recipe for the chocolate caramel cupcakes with apple pieces. This makes the cupcakes a bit more autumnal and at the same time, results in a fresh note. Sure, the apple cupcakes with cream cheese cinnamon topping are lush. Wonderfully lush! But I used a comparatively small amount of brown sugar and a slightly lighter topping than the often used buttercreams, which sometimes stick an additional 500g of powdered sugar for 12 cupcakes. Feel like baking with apples? Then be sure to check out my many more apple pies or my delicious caramel cream.
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