Apple cupcakes with salted caramel frosting recipe

Apple Spice Cupcakes with Salted Caramel Frosting

Comforting flavors like nutmeg and cinnamon dot each bite of these moist and flavorful apple spice cupcakes . The tiny and tender pieces of tart Granny Smith apples hiding inside melt in your mouth. Luscious and satin-y salted caramel frosting is the perfect finishing touch and if you’re up for accessorizing, add a drizzle of salted caramel too. What a cupcake!

When the start of fall rolls around, some reader-favorite recipes include these pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, apple cider donuts, and classic pecan pie. It’s the time of year when pumpkin and cinnamon spices take over the kitchen and one of my top fall baking choices has always been today’s apple spice cupcakes. One bite is all it will take to convince even the most die-hard summer spirit that the flavors of fall reign supreme! They’re soft and cakey, remind me of apple pie , and taste extra special with the caramel frosting on top.

They’re the indisputable champion if you’re looking for a festive and fun fall cupcake!

Tell Me About These Apple Spice Cupcakes with Salted Caramel Frosting

• Flavor: While they aren’t stuffed with chocolate ganache or adorned with candy bars, these modest apple spice cupcakes pack enough apple and cinnamon spice flavor that there’s no need for frosting. (That doesn’t mean we won’t add any– we aren’t crazy!) Salted caramel turns these into a salty sweet cupcake, but if you’re looking for something different, some readers have used the cinnamon cream cheese frosting from these banana cupcakes before.
• Texture: These have more texture than your typical vanilla cupcake. Every bite is a balance of soft, cakey, rich, and creamy. They’re extra moist like banana bread , but not nearly as dense. Think of a soft and cakey muffin packed with tender pieces of apple and topped with thick caramel frosting– just like that.
• Ease: The cupcake batter comes together without much effort. Set aside some time to peel and finely chop your apple before folding it all into the batter. The frosting requires the stove and some extra time to cool down before finishing it up. I usually get started on the frosting as the cupcakes cool so both are ready at the same time for decorating.

Overview: How to Make Apple Spice Cupcakes with Salted Caramel Frosting

The full printable recipe is below, but let’s walk through it so you understand each step before getting started.

1. Prepare. Preheat the oven and line your muffin pan. This apple cupcake recipe yields slightly more than a dozen cupcakes, so have a 2nd muffin pan handy or bake the batter in batches. I always use and recommend these parchment paper cupcake/muffin liners.
2. Mix wet ingredients. As listed in the printable recipe below, you’ll need melted butter, brown sugar, regular granulated sugar, eggs, milk, and vanilla extract for this step. Brown sugar and butter are an unbeatable pairing, especially when combined with cinnamon, nutmeg, and apple.
3. Finish the batter. This is when you’ll whisk the dry ingredients together including flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Combine the wet and dry ingredients, then fold in the apples.
4. Bake. Fill your liners about 3/4 full with apple cupcake batter, then bake as instructed below. You need about 1/4 cup of batter per cupcake.
5. Make the frosting. As the cupcakes are finishing up cooling, start the frosting. This is a two part process combined into 1 step. Make sure you leave enough time for the stovetop mixture to cool (about 30 minutes) before finishing the frosting.

I love this frosting because there’s deep brown sugar and caramel flavor. If you love chocolate and salted caramel, try it paired with these chocolate cupcakes. If you’re not into salted caramel frosting, feel free to try peanut butter frosting, cream cheese frosting, or the cinnamon cream cheese frosting from these banana cupcakes .

If you ever need extra advice or guidance when it comes to cupcake baking, here’s my Tips for Baking the Best Cupcakes page. You can also join my Baking Made Easy email course to receive my best baking tips! It’s completely free and includes my top recipes and plenty of helpful baking lessons.

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Apple Cupcakes with Caramel Frosting

Enjoy caramel and apples in the form of a cupcake with these sweet and salty Apple Cupcakes with Caramel Frosting.

Yield: 12 cupcakes

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Cook: 1 hour 6 minutes

Tessa’s Recipe Rundown.

Taste: Apple cake with sweet and salty caramel buttercream frosting.
Texture: Moist and tender crumb and silky smooth frosting.
Ease: The frosting requires a little extra time but it’s not too difficult.
Appearance: Mouthwatering.
Pros: Apples, cake, caramel frosting, caramel drizzle…
Cons: You have to keep a close eye on the caramel sauce so you don’t over cook and burn it.
Would I make this again? Oh yeah!

Please welcome back Melanie from Garnish and Glaze as she shares this Apple Cupcakes with Caramel Frosting recipe! Please visit her mouthwatering blog and show her some love!

I LOVE fall! The crispness of the air is so refreshing, the crunchy leaves under my feet is music to my ears, and all things apple or pumpkin taste like heaven. Just give me a loaf of Pumpkin Bread with Cream Cheese Frosting and a Caramel Apple and I’m one happy girl.

These apple cupcakes are divine! The shredded apple makes them so moist and that caramel buttercream frosting is silky smooth sweet and salty heaven. My two year old ate all the frosting off the cupcake and then said “mmmm! More butter!?” Haha! I was pretty impressed she knew it was made of butter… and also proud that she likes butter as much as I do. I’m sure you will love these fall cupcakes as much as we did!

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Salted Caramel Apple Cupcakes

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All the flavors of a caramel apple in a moist, fluffy, generously frosted cupcake. I’ll take 10 please! These cupcakes are fabulous to say the least. My husband said they were his favorite cupcakes ever, so I guess they must be pretty good =). I will admit coming up with cupcake recipes is no easy task.

My first recipe attempt wasn’t what I was looking for so I made a few alterations, such as reducing the sugar and butter slightly, omitting baking powder, and adding lemon juice to help imitate the slight tartness of a caramel apple (I may even add more next time). I also used coarsely grated apples the first time around and found I didn’t like the texture.

They seemed to make the cupcake too heavy as well so I went with the finer grate the second time around and it made a world of difference.

If you like caramel apples this is definitely a recipe you’re not going to want to let this Fall season go by without making. If you aren’t a fan of salted caramel feel free to omit the sea salt. If you want to make them extra fancy you could add some vanilla bean seeds to the caramel sauce or the frosting. And for an added crunch you could sprinkle them with chopped pecans or walnuts.
Be sure to be careful when making the caramel as you are working with boiling hot melted sugar here. Also really pay attention to its color while it boils as it will go through stages. Through the clear, the light golden, to golden orange, then amber and at last the dark amber. Be sure to allow it to become dark enough in color but also making sure it doesn’t become too dark.

It’s color is key. If it is under cooked or over cooked the caramel wont be the right consistency and wont have the right flavor. When it’s too dark it is burned and tastes bitter. When it’s under cooked it will taste more like butter and sugar than caramel and it will be too runny.
I absolutely love homemade caramel sauce. Once you make it at home you’ll have a really hard time buying the stuff at the store (that’s made from mostly corn syrup). The homemade caramel sauce is the crowning jewel of these cupcakes. Enjoy!

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Apple Cider Cupcakes & Salted Caramel Buttercream Recipe

Moist and flavorful apple cider cupcakes with salted caramel frosting on top!

I think most of the world is in agreement that this is the BEST time of year for baking. My kitchen is filled with Fall aromatics like pumpkin and cinnamon and apples! There’s nothing cozier than that.

Even if it is 85 degrees outside. .

This is an old, old recipe from that blog that has long past deserved an update– both in photos and the recipe. I first posted this back in 2011, when Something Swanky was just barely breaking into the blogging world.

These cupcakes quickly gained popularity, but the original recipe had a lot of problems (as evidenced in several of the comments below . ). Mostly in the frosting department. The original recipe called for melting Kraft caramels and mixing the melted caramels into a buttercream.

I’ve since tested multiple methods for making salted caramel buttercream and have decided that there is no shortcut. You can’t use jarred caramel sauce. And you can’t melt down caramels. You really do have to make homemade “caramel” from scratch to make the buttercream work out just right.

The good news is: it’s really, really easy. And really not a big deal. Like, I’m not sure why I bucked so hard against doing that in the first place!

Not to let the salted caramel buttercream completely steal the show here, let’s talk about the apple cider cupcakes underneath.

I love these cupcakes. I think they’re a little muffin-y in the taste, almost bran-like. Which is interesting, because the recipe doesn’t even use whole wheat flour. But all the same, it has an oaty, harvest-y (is that a word?) type flavor to it. It’s hearty, but light and fluffy at the same time.

It pairs in a beautiful, cozy way with the caramel frosting.

I hope you enjoy these as much as we do! Happy Fall . .

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Ultimate Salted Caramel Cupcakes

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Ultimate Salted Caramel Cupcakes

If you love salted caramel, you have to try the Ultimate Salted Caramel Cupcakes! Moist, fluffy, and loaded with salted caramel flavor.

How to make Salted Caramel Cupcakes

Hello friends, hello weekend, hello sea salt caramel cupcakes! It’s a stunning Spring Saturday here in New York, so I’m going to keep this post short and sweet. We’re packing a little charcuterie platter and heading to the park for some fun in the sun. Any big plans on your end?

Alright, time to get down to business. Lucky for us, today’s business is Salted Caramel Cupcakes ! Trust me when I sat no one can resist these beauties… 😉

Fluffy brown sugar cupcakes stuffed with a rich pocket of salted caramel sauce (optional) then topped with homemade salted caramel frosting. I used Fran’s Salted Caramel Sauce, but any thick variety will work. You can also skip this step if you’d prefer non-stuffed cupcakes. But seriously… who would want to skip THIS ↓

But I’m getting ahead of myself. The first step in this recipe is baking the sweet and oh-so-fluffy brown sugar cupcakes. To make them you’ll need: all-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, whole milk, sour cream, butter, granulated AND light brown sugar, eggs, and water.

A few important notes on ingredients:

• I used full-fat sour cream and whole milk in this recipe and I recommend you doing the same. These cupcakes get a lot of their moisture from the fat in these ingredients. Using fat-free or reduced fat replacements will result in a drier end result.
• This recipe calls for granulated sugar AND brown sugar. I don’t recommend substituting all one or the other. The brown sugar adds moisture and flavor, while the granulated sugar assists with the fluffy consistency.
• Make sure your butter is the right temperature before you begin beating it. It needs to be at room temperature, meaning it should be soft enough that, when lightly pressed with your finger, it leaves an indentation in the stick of butter. I typically leave my butter on the counter for an hour or so, but if you’re really short on time, you can cut the cold stick of butter into into small pieces, which will help speed along the thawing process. Just leave them out at room temperature until they’re soft to the touch.
• Your eggs, egg yolk, milk, and sour cream should also be at room temperature. Cold ingredients won’t incorporate evenly, resulting dense cupcakes, so be sure to take the extra step and bring them to room temperature.
• Here’s a trick for the eggs: to bring cold eggs to room temperature, simply place them in a bowl of warm water for 15 minutes. Just be sure you don’t use hot water!
• Speaking of hot water, this recipe calls for a 1/4 cup of boiling water! You’ll mix it in at the very end, and it’s essential to the batter. The water should be freshly boiled to ensure it’s warm enough.

Hope all those little tips and tricks help!

Moving onto my favorite part: the salted caramel frosting. I’m dead frigging serious when I say you’ll want to eat this stuff by the spoonful. Three important things:

1. Do NOT skip the salt in this frosting. It is verrrrry sweet, and needs the salt to balance it out. Trust me on this.
2. The frosting beings by making a caramel, then adding confectioners’ sugar and beating it. You must beat this frosting for the full 5 minutes.
3. You will need to chill your frosting for 15 minutes before pipping or spreading. I don’t recommend keeping it in the fridge any longer or it will begin to seize. When you take the frosting out of the fridge, stir it smooth, then frost away! I used this Star tip to pipe the frosting on my cupcakes, but decorate as you please 😉

To fancy up the cupcakes even more I topped them with caramel sauce, flaky sea salt, and a caramel candy piece. I used Maldon Sea Salt, Ghiradelli Caramel Sauce, and my favorite caramel candies, but feel free to use any brand you like! These cupcakes are a salted caramel lovers dream come true.

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