Apple with Spice & All Things Nice!

You know how it is I’m sure, you look in the fruit bowl and some of the fruit has passed its best. Normally for me this is bananas, but today it happened to be a few green apples. Peeled, cored and chopped, those apples were perfectly fine for stewing up into applesauce for these cupcakes. Applesauce gives the sponge a lovely moistness and each flavour complements each other perfectly here in this bake. It never ceases to amaze me how one ingredient that is passed its prime can influence a bake, such as the apples from my fruit bowl.

Applesauce & Cinnamon Cupcakes

Makes 12

Ingredients
100g (4 oz) softened unsalted butter
100g (4 oz) caster (superfine) sugar
100g (4 oz) self-raising (self-rising) flour
2 large eggs
100g (4 oz) unsweetened applesauce
75g (3 oz) raisins
1tsp ground cinnamon
1 small red sweet apple, thinly sliced
2 tbsp granulated sugar

You will need a 12 holed muffin tin lined with paper cupcake cases

Method

Preheat the oven to 180°C/fan oven 160°C/350°C/Gas mark 4. Place the butter, caster sugar in a mixing bowl and beat until light and fluffy. Add one egg at a time and beat until fully combined into the mixture. Fold the flour, cinnamon, raisins and applesauce, into the creamed mixture. Spoon the mixture into the paper cupcake cases. Lay the apple slices on top and sprinkle with a little granulated sugar on each cupcake. Bake for 25 minutes or until golden in colour and baked through. Leave to cool in the tin for 5 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely, or you could serve these cupcakes warm with lashings of custard for dessert.

Lastly sit back chill out, serve yourself a cupcake, you absolutely deserve a treat!!

Wishing all my dear friends across the pond – A Happy 4th July!!!