Caramel Apple, Candy Corn Cupcakes gluten-free #Recipe by @LibbyKlein

  Libby Klein This is a big recipe with lots of steps but the finished product is delicious. I originally made these for Antique Auctions Are Murder which contain all recipes made with Jersey Shore Boardwalk ingredients. "Candy Corn" is a misnomer. I realize now that I should have named these "Kettle Corn" to be more accurate. A delicious cupcake filled with caramel apples and topped with kettle corn and caramel sauce over caramel frosting. These are great for an event when you really want to stand out. I give you a recipe to make your own caramel sauce, but let's be honest - you can just buy caramel sundae topping and cut yourself a break if you're short on time or patience. I've been there. Let me know in the comments what recipe hacks you use when you're short on time.

Caramel Apple, Candy Corn Cupcakes

Yield 12 cupcakes

 Note: Make the Caramel Sauce several hours before you make everything else. It needs to cool completely before turning it into buttercream.

 

Ingredients

Apple Pie Filling:

2 apples

6 Tablespoons butter

3 Tablespoons sugar

½ teaspoon apple pie spice

 

Cupcakes:

1 ¼ cups gluten-free flour blend*

*½ tsp xanthan gum if not included in your flour blend

¼ teaspoon salt

1 ½ teaspoons baking powder 

½ cup canola oil (or neutral oil of choice)

¾ cups granulated sugar

1 Tablespoon vanilla extract

2 large eggs room temperature

½ cup milk

 

Caramel Butter cream – recipe follows

Kettle corn (I prefer the lightly sweet if you can find it)

Caramel sauce – recipe follows

 

Instructions

Make the Apple Pie Filling

Peel, core, and chop apples into small cubes. Add butter to a frying pan over medium. Fry apples until soft and cooked through. You don’t want them to brown necessarily, so you may need to adjust your heat down to low if they are getting crisp. Once the apples are soft, add sugar, and spice and cook for another minute until the flavors are throughout. Taste your apples to make sure they have enough sugar and spice for you to be apple pie filling. If they need more of one or the other, adjust accordingly. Set the apples aside to cool completely.

 

Make the cupcakes

Preheat oven to 350°F. Position rack in center of oven. Grease a 12-cup muffin tin or line with papers.

In a medium bowl, combine gluten free flour, *xanthan gum if it is not already in your flour blend, salt, and baking powder. Set aside.

In another medium bowl combine oil, sugar, and vanilla. Add eggs and beat with an electric mixer at medium speed for one minute until fluffy.

Add the flour to the egg mixture and combine until it starts to come together. Then add the milk. Combine thoroughly.

Spoon a little bit of batter into paper liners no more than halfway full. Add a tablespoon of apple pie filling over the batter. Add more cupcake batter on top of the apples. Bake for 18-22 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Let cakes cool for 15 minutes on the counter, then remove to a storage container to let cool completely. This will keep them moist. Top with Caramel buttercream and kettle corn. Drizzle with caramel sauce. Recipes follow.

 

Caramel Sauce

 Ingredients

1 cup granulated sugar

6 Tablespoons salted butter, softened

1/2 cup heavy cream, at room temperature

Heavy pinch salt

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Instructions

Heat granulated sugar in a heavy-duty saucepan over medium heat. Do not stir. You can swirl and tilt the pan if you have to. Sugar will melt into an amber-colored liquid. Be careful not to burn it. *If you have trouble getting the sugar to melt, or you form clumps, add some water. Once the sugar has melted, let it boil for a minute to boil off the water you added.

Once sugar is completely melted, immediately stir in the butter until combined. It will bubble and spit but just keep whisking the heck out of it. It will settle down and come together. Return to heat and cook for 1 minute without stirring.

Very slowly stir in 1/2 cup of heavy cream. It may bubble and spit again, just keep whisking. After all the heavy cream has been added, stop whisking and allow the caramel to boil for 1 minute. Remove from the heat and add your pinch of salt. Let it cool completely. You’ll reserve about ¼ of this for the caramel drizzle, and ¾ of this for the caramel frosting, recipe below.

 

Caramel Frosting

 Ingredients

¾ of the cooled caramel sauce from above.

1 cup of unsalted butter (2 sticks)

Pinch salt

1 1/3 cup confectioners sugar

 

Instructions

In the bowl of your stand mixer, with the wire whisk attached, whip the cooled caramel sauce to loosen it up. Add the softened butter and whip again to combine. It may be a little lumpy looking as these two things don’t naturally want to come together. Add your pinch of salt, then add the confectioners sugar a little at a time. Continue to whip the frosting until it becomes smooth and fluffy. We aren’t adding a lot of confectioners sugar because we don’t want to overwhelm the cupcakes with sweetness. This will make a light, fluffy frosting to act as glue for the kettle corn.

Frost your cupcakes with enough frosting for the kettle corn to adhere to, then roll the top of the cupcake in the lightly sweet kettle corn. You may need to move the kettle corn around to cover the top of the cupcake completely. Finish the cupcakes by drizzling over the remaining ¼ cup of caramel sauce.

Only two more weeks until Silent Nights Are Murder releases. Check out my contest on my website to win a free tote bag and signed copy!

Gluten-free baker Poppy McAllister and her aunt Ginny are looking forward to a quiet, homey Christmas at their B&B in Cape May, but unfortunately, death isn’t taking a holiday this year . . .

Ever since Thanksgiving, Poppy and her pals have been left with an unsolved mystery of the romantic kind. But at least this mystery isn’t the kind that involves murder. That all changes when the body of a fish supplier is discovered in the kitchen of her ex’s restaurant—and he’s frozen, not fresh.

For once, it’s not Poppy who tripped over the corpse, yet she can’t escape being drawn in since the victim has a note taped to him reading Get Poppy. Figures—an engagement ring isn't labeled, but the dead guy is addressed to her. Now, while Aunt Ginny plans a tree-trimming party and pressures Poppy to decode a mysterious old diary, the amateur sleuth is asked to “unofficially” go undercover at the restaurant to help the police. Until then, the only crime Poppy had been dealing with was Figaro’s repeated thefts of bird ornaments from the tree; now it looks like it’s going to be a murder-y Christmas after all.

 

Libby Klein grew up in Cape May, NJ where she attended high school in the '80s. Her 
classes revolved mostly around the Culinary sciences and Drama, with one brilliant semester in Poly-Sci that may have been an accident. She loves to drink coffee, bake gluten-free goodies, collect fluffy cats, and translate sarcasm for people who are too serious. She writes from her Northern Virginia office where she serves a very naughty black smoke Persian named Sir Figaro Newton. You can keep up with her shenanigans by signing up for her Mischief and Mayhem Newsletter on her website. www.LibbyKleinBooks.com/Newsletter/