Spiced Apple Pie Cupcakes with Caramel Buttercream Frosting
Cupcake meets pie in this flavorful recipe for moist homemade spice cake cupcakes featuring an apple pie filling, creamy caramel buttercream frosting and caramel drizzle.
I feel like it’s been so long since I’ve had the chance to sit back and share about my days, but now it’s been a week and I have so much catching up to do! Okay, I promise I won’t really backtrack that much. How are you liking apple a day party so far? We’re a week in with 3 more weeks to go! I’m super excited for all of the delicious creations. I joked about it last year but I really need to require taste testing of these recipes. Kidding obviously, but wouldn’t that be fun? A months worth of actual recipes in front of me, not just recipes. Such a tasty month it’d be.
The other day I whipped up one of my favorite apple recipes created last year; apple snickerdoodle cobbler. If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook, you probably saw the picture. It’s divine! If you love apples and snickerdoodle cookies, this recipe is an absolute must make! It’s like an apple crisp but with a cookie topping. Tender cinnamon apples with crunchy snickerdoodle topping, how can you go wrong?
Lately I find myself brainstorming so many recipe ideas that I manage to forget them before I can write them down. It’s a real pain in the you know what. The other day I remembered one while I was trying to remember another. This is exactly why I have notes on my phone, computer and in a notebook. I’m kind of crazy about notes but when I forget, well… I guess the notes are kind of useless if I don’t use them. Right? ;) Thankfully I remembered this recipe. It took two trials.
The first trial I used box spice cake mix. I figured, how could it go wrong? Easy peasy. Only not so much. Sure they were easy to whip up but they really failed in other ways. For starters, they were kind of flat as you can clearly see below. Maybe you know how obsessive I am about altering recipes and cutting down on ingredients to a T, so it’ll come as no surprise that I cut the box mix in half. But it was measured exactly. And it only made 9 cupcakes which means a full box would have only made 18 and yet the box says 24. Something isn’t adding up. And then the flavor was kind of lacking.
So instead, I made cupcakes from scratch, based off of other cupcake recipes I’ve created and made. They were everything I had hoped for. Full of flavor, moist, domed and just down right perfect spiced cupcakes. I’ll never use box spice cake mix again!
Taking these cupcakes to a whole other level, I filled them with fresh homemade apple pie filling, topped them off with creamy caramel buttercream frosting and a drizzle of caramel syrup. Over the top amazing.
The recipe below is a reduced amount, but can be easily increased to make a larger batch. It made a perfect batch for my family of five. Sometimes all you really need or want is a few and it’s always easier to increase than decrease!
Spiced Apple Pie Cupcakes with Caramel Buttercream Frosting
Ingredients
Cupcake:
- 2 Tbsp light brown sugar
- 1/4 C granulated sugar
- 1/4 C applesauce
- 1 Tbsp vegetable oil
- 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 large egg
- 1/2 C all purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp baking powder
- 1/8 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp cinnamon
- 1/8 tsp nutmeg
- Pinch ground cloves
Apple pie filling:
- 1 1/2 C apples roughly 1-2 apples
- 4 1/2 tsp light brown sugar
- 1/4 tsp cinnamon
Buttercream frosting:
- 3 Tbsp unsalted butter
- 1 1/2 C powdered sugar
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 Tbsp caramel syrup
- 2 Tbsp heavy cream
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F degrees. Prepare a cupcake tray with 5-6 paper liners. Set aside a small baking dish (no larger than 8x8, but preferably smaller).
- Peel, core and chop apples into 1/2-inch pieces. Toss with brown sugar and cinnamon to coat well. Add to baking dish, cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes.
- In a large bowl or stand mixer, mix together sugars, applesauce and vegetable oil. Mix in egg and vanilla, followed by remaining ingredients. Mix just into all ingredients are combined. Use a large cookie scoop to divide mixture among prepared liners, 1 large scoop per liner (you may not need the 6th liner). Bake for 18 minutes or until a toothpick inserted only has a few moist crumbs. Cool on a wire rack.
- Prepare buttercream in a medium bowl or stand mixer. Cream butter and powdered sugar together. Mixture may become slightly crumbly, that's okay. Add vanilla, caramel syrup and heavy cream. Beat until smooth and spreadable consistency. Add additional heavy cream if needed.
- When cupcakes have cooled completely. Use a knife or cupcake corer to remove the center of the cupcake. Fill with apple pie filling, leaving a 1/2-inch space at the top. Slice off the dome of the cored piece of cupcake, place over the apple pie filling.
- Pipe or frost cupcakes as desired. Drizzle with additional caramel syrup. Serve immediately or store in a covered container.
Notes

Giveaway details
Courtesy of King Arthur Flour, one winner will receive one each of the following:
Pastry blender, Apple corer, 1 pint boiled cider, Apple pie spice, Red apple cookie cutter and a coupon for a free bag of King Arthur Flour to be used at your local store.
Giveaway will run from September 7, 2013 – September 13, 2013. Winner must be at least 18 years old and a US resident. Winner will be randomly selected and emailed. Winner has 48 hours to respond or another winner will be chosen. Main entry must be completed or extra entries will not count.
Items used in this recipe:
Disclaimer: *I asked King Arthur Flour to be a sponsor of An Apple A Day. I received free product to use in my own kitchen. All opinions are my own. **This post contains affiliate links.
I like Nutmeg Nanny on facebook
I like Very Culinary on facebook
I follow King Arthur Flour on facebook.
Liked you on FB
I follow Katie’s Cucina on facebook
I like Bakeaholic on facebook
I follow all of your pinterest boards.
I have subscribed to your email subscriptions.
I would love to make the banana Bread
I follow Nutmeg Nanny on Facebook.
I follow Very Culinary on Facebook.
I want to make the honey oatmeal bread yum.
I want to make the honey oatmeal bread.
I liked on king Henry
Liked nutmeg nancy
I’m actually going to make some caramel apple cupcakes for work this weekend, but I also think the caramel-apple cinnamon buns on the King Arthur Flour website sound fantastic. And I bet I could easily make them gluten free!
Liked very culinary
I like Baked by Rachel on FB.
I like KAF on FB.
Liked Katie cucina
I like Nutmeg Nanny on FB.
Liked bakeaholic momma
I like Very Culinary on FB.
I like Katie’s Cucina on FB.
Liked baked by Rachel
I like Bakeaholic Mama on FB.
I follow KAF on Twitter.
I shared your post on FB.
I tweeted about your giveaway. https://twitter.com/ciannait81/status/378722666716213248
I follow you on pinterest.
I am subscribed to your feed via email.
I follow Katie’s Cucina on Facebook.
I follow Bakeaholic Mama on Facebook.
I’m following King Arthur Flour on Twitter @KCatapano.
I will make scones, & bread, &……well, I could go on and on!!
I follow Baked By Rachel on FB
I follow KAF on FB
I follow Nutmeg Nanny on FB
I follow Very Culinary on FB
I follow Katie’s Cucina on FB
I follow Bakeacholic Mama on FB
I subscribe to Baked by Rachel through email.
My dream is to make sourdough bread, KAF has step by step. How can I go wrong?
I follow Baked by Rachel on facebook
Subscribed to BakedByRachel! Love your blog!
I’m a big fan of King Aurthur’s Flour, it’s hard to pick just one recipe but right now I’d love to try their blueberry scones or their chocolate covered scones!
Followed via Pinterest
I made this for one of the desserts on Thanksgiving and ehh.. not so impressed. The flavor was wonderful but mine came out very dry and the frosting was very grainy, runny, and tasted very off… Maybe I did it wrong? Or maybe having to quadruple the recipe threw me off.. With some tweaking, this recipe could be amazing. The apples in the center were a huge hit but that’s really about as far as the compliments went. Great flavor cupcakes, just texture issues.
I’m sorry to hear you had trouble. My cupcakes were neither dry nor grainy, in fact the exact opposite, so I can only believe that something went wrong in the quadrupling process.
I just wanted to say that I adore this recipe! I actually made these gluten free & dairy free with some minor adjustments and quadrupled the recipe. They were a hit! Definitely will make these again. Thank you so much for sharing.
So glad everyone enjoyed it!! Thanks for sharing :)
Made these before and they were delicious!
Was wondering if I would be able to make this as a single cake instead of cupcakes and just layering in the apples in-between. Any suggestions? And what would the bake time be?
Thanks!
I haven’t tried this as a cake so, I don’t have any advice for you besides giving it a try and testing periodically for it to be done. Good luck!!