Spiced Apple Cupcakes with Spiced Cream Cheese Frosting

All put together minus carpet

 

 

This last weekend I have done a lot of work to please to my two cats. I built a cat tree from them. I got plans for it from dadand.com and started working on it on Friday night, measuring and planing the cuts to make. They said that it should be able to be completed in about 2 hrs and for about $25. It took a couple hours on Friday, all day Saturday and most of the day on Sunday to complete it. It was $25 for the carpet, and then $24 for the sisal rope, and another $7 for the shelf/ 2'x4'x1/2'' particle board. All in all is a little bit more than $25 that they said, but still less than buying a good quality one from the store.

All put together with carpet, and cats enjoying it

Its no where near what a professional one would look like, but I'm happy with it and the cats seem to love it. There are parts that are not straight or level, but I blame the wood not my workmanship. I am accident prone, and I am surprised that I did not get injured more than I did making this cat tree. I stabbed my self with a screw and bled a little bit because of that. I also was using the scissors too long and got a blister that popped before I realized I even had it. (That is not counting all the little burns I got from the hot glue gun, but they didn't stay for very long so I didn't count them.)

 

 

Apple Cake with Maple Frosting from The Cake Book by Tish Boyle

1 ½ cups all purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp ground cinnamon

¼ tsp ground cloves

¼ tsp ground ginger

¼ tsp baking soda

¼ tsp salt

½ cup butter, softened

1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 large eggs

2/3 cup buttermilk

2 cups peeled and chopped Granny Smith apples (about 2 apples)

½ cup coarsely chopped walnuts

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350°F and grease and flour bottom and sides of 9 inch cake pan. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and soda, cinnamon, cloves, ginger and salt. Set aside. In a large bowl beat the butter at medium speed until creamy, about 1 minute. Gradually add the sugar and beat at medium-high speed until well blended and light, about 2 minutes. Add the vanilla extract, then add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed. Reduce the speed to low and add the flour mixture in three additions, alternating it with the buttermilk in two additions and mixing just until blended. Stir in the chopped apples and walnuts. Scrape the batter into prepared pan and smooth the top. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until it is golden and a toothpick inserted into center of the cake comes out clean. Cool the cake completely in the pan on a wire rack.

 Cream Cheese Spice Frosting

6 ounces cream cheese softened

3 tablespoons butter, softened

½ tsp vanilla extract

1/8 tsp ground cinnamon

1/8 tsp ground ginger

Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg

Pinch of salt

1 cup confectioners’ sugar, sifted

Instructions

In the bowl of an electric mixer, using the paddle attachment, beat together the cream cheese and butter at medium speed until smooth. Beat in the vanilla extract, spices and slat. Reduce the speed to low, add the confectioners’ sugar and beat until well blended. Raise the speed to high and beat until light and creamy, about 2 minutes.

Add a 1/8 tsp maple flavoring along with the vanilla extract to make Cream Cheese Maple Frosting

Changes Made

Instead of chopping the apples, I used our food processor which has a shredder blade and shredded the apples. Also I did not add the walnuts in case anyone was allergic to nuts. I doubled the recipe and made 32 cupcakes instead of one large cake. I filled the liners almost to the top. I baked the cupcakes for 13-18 minutes.

For the frosting I added extra butter on accident and I did not add the maple flavoring. Also I added a small amount of cloves instead of the freshly ground nutmeg.