Fruity, sweet and salty combine in my Apple Cider Caramel Cupcakes to bring you the perfect Autumnal treat. The cupcake sponge has the warm, inviting hit of apple cider with the added bonus of more grated apple that sweetens the sponge perfectly. Filled with salted caramel sauce, the cupcake is then topped with a luxurious swirl of caramel swiss meringue buttercream, an extra drizzle of caramel and finished off with an apple crisp.

For me Autumnal flavours embody that warm, cozy, pull on a warm knit and walk through fallen burnt orange leaf vibes. Flavours like maple syrup, toasted pecans, ginger, mocha, salty caramel and apple are my favourite.

All those that follow me on instagram know my views on the traditional Autumn flavours ... cinnamon, pumpkin spice, nutmeg and chai. I have a strong dislike for them. Scratch that. I can’t stand them!! I know, I know, I’m in a minority here ... but well, I can’t help that. I may venture into pumpkin and chocolate ... but that’s as far as I’ll take it!

You definitely won’t see any of those flavours during this season of baking!

Apple Cider Caramel Cupcakes

Well, let's talk about the main components in these delicious cupcakes.

The cupcake is hit twice with the added flavour of apple. Not only is there ½ cup of apple cider which moistens the batter whilst adding the sweetness and a little tang. There’s also grated apple that adds even more flavour but also melts away and caramelises in the sponge whilst baking. Hello deliciousness!

Once baked the cupcake is then filled with salted caramel sauce. Can you just stop right there and imagine what that tastes like with the apple cupcakes? Heaven I tell you! As an extra bit of decadence, because why not, that same caramel sauce is then drizzled onto the buttercream! I made my usual salted caramel sauce, found here, for the recipe but if you’d prefer to use store bought then go for it.

Onto the swiss meringue buttercream. I’ll go into more detail in the next part, but its safe to say that this style of buttercream is divine. Not to sweet, smooth as silk, light ...yeah I’m a massive fan!

The proverbial cherry on the cake is the single slice of apple crisps. So simple to make and so effective. I used a mandolin to slice the apples, but you could slice by hand if you don’t have one, and then laid all the slices on a baking tray and baked them for 1 hour in a 140C/275F oven, turning over once. They dry out beautifully and the apple flavour intensifies to give a delicately textured but packed full of flavour bite. Well worth the effort.

Caramel Buttercream being piped onto Apple Cider Cupcakes

Caramel Swiss Meringue Buttercream

So I touched on this type of buttercream above. It's super light, extremely smooth, and not sickly at all. Once made it’s also great to handle- it pipes amazingly and holds its shape. Brilliant!

The thing with standard butter cream is that it's sweet, like really sweet. I mean, you can’t really blame it can you, it's predominantly made up of butter, vanilla extract and icing sugar. Like a lot of icing sugar and it can have a slightly grainy texture because of this.

But what ingredients going swiss meringue buttercream?

Pantry staples: egg whites, sugar, butter, vanilla extract and for this recipe, caramel.

In short, it's the process of heating egg whites and sugar until the egg whites are cooked and sugar dissolved and then whipping them into a beautiful glossy meringue. Butter and flavouring (if required) are then added to give you the perfect buttercream.

And how do you make it?

Ok so here’s the deal. It’s slightly more of a process than standard American buttercream, but once you get the hang of it it’ll become a firm favourite to top your cakes and cupcakes with.

I’ll take you step by step.

Using a bain marie (metal bowl sat snugly over a pan of boiling water - not touching the water though), whisk the egg whites and sugar continuously until the temperature reaches 70C/160F. Sugar granules should feel totally dissolved when mixture is rubbed between finger and thumb.
Remove from the heat and pour into the bowl of a stand mixer with the whisk attachment fitted. Then whisk on medium to high until the egg white mixture is completely cool. and the bowl is cool to touch. This can take 15-20 minutes.
Remove the whisk attachment and replace with the paddle attachment. On medium speed, start adding the butter one table spoon at a time, only adding the next when the butter is fully incorporated.. Once completely added then continue to beat for another 3-5 minutes until the mixture is whipped and of a thick consistency. Note: if it's lumpy then continue to whip until smooth.
Add vanilla extract and salted caramel and whip until fully combined.

Now you are ready to pipe and before you know it you’ll have your very own tray of Apple Cider Caramel Cupcakes to munch on!