Harvest Orchard: Autumn Tipsy Wholewheat Apple Pie Cupcake with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.”  Albert Camus

 

Every little drawing of Mother Nature, every sound she makes, every breath she takes, every season has its special beauty, without an exception. Autumn, however, is different: with a melancholic, depressed sadness in it breathtaking beauty, yet with a colourful, sexy make-up on her face, autumn shows aging beauty but a promising possibility of eternal life. Fall…it is the fall of charming leaves, the fall of young, fearless spring, the fall of happy, cheeky summer, it is the adulthood of Mother Nature, with a wisdom and knowledge behind her elegant, lady-like, seasoned appearance. Watching the trees dropping their waggish, facetious green play-suits to ballroom velvet dress made from royal varieties of gold, yellow and red is a spectacular experience. One can almost be blinded by the fiery brilliance as wanting take the view in before the winter freeze bleaches all its picturesque bloom. Many great thinkers became demented over wanting to understand how can be that all this beauty is sign of decay and death? For the fall of many…autumn, though looks sweetly enchanted, is vicious, wicked and ruthless. It produces luscious fruits of all summers’ work, all to take it away with one dawn-chill if she feels like it…With all the magical  there is a certain knowing that the changing colors foreshadow the arrival of a long cold winter…however, when autumn decides to give, she pack one’s table full of warmth, sweet juiciness and a vast array of flavours.

“Autumn is the hardest season. The leaves are all falling, and they’re falling like they’re falling in love with the ground.”  Andrea Gibson

Cupcakes
120 g whole wheat flour
120 g all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon cinnamon
140 g unsalted butter, at room temperature
115 g granulated sugar
110 g dark brown sugar, packed, divided
1 large egg, lightly beaten
120 g yogurt
2 large apples, peeled, cored, and coarsely chopped
2 tbsp apple vodka

Preparation
Preheat the oven to 190°C. Prepare 18 cupcake holes by cutting rounds of sweet pastry and fitting into them and set aside to chill in the fridge. Mix together the flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon, and set aside. In a separate bowl, cream the butter and add the granulated sugar and 55 g of the brown sugar. Beat until fluffy. Add the egg and mix well; stop once to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl.Mix in the buttermilk gently. (If you over-mix, the buttermilk will cause the mixture to curdle.) Stir in the dry ingredients and fold in the apple chunks. Divide the batter evenly among the prepared sweet pastry cups, sprinkling the remaining  brown sugar on top. Bake for 10 minutes, turn the heat down to 170°C, and bake for an additional 15 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean. Cool the muffins for 5 minutes in the tin, brush them with apple vodka, then turn them out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

 

For the cinnamon cream cheese frosting:
With an electric mixer, combine 115 g cream cheese, 115 g unsalted butter,500 g powdered sugar, 1 tsp pure vanilla extract, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp allspice and a drop of dark brown food colouring until smooth and creamy.  Spread frosting evenly over cake.

“No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace as I have seen in one autumnal face.”  John Donne