Apple Spice Cupcakes

The Art.
   Every fall, Handsome and I go apple picking at a nearby fruit farm. It's one of my favorite traditions, partly because we get to enjoy the crisp fall weather in a beautiful orchard, and partly because it involves things I can eat. While we both love apple picking, the two of us certainly have very disparate approaches to it. Handsome will pick as many apples as he can fit in his paper bag regardless of whether we can eat them all, because he thinks it's a great deal. I, on the other hand, always have a recipe in mind before we go, and I will pick the exact number of apples I need for said recipe, no more, no less. I like to pick Granny Smith apples for baked goods because of their crisp texture and tart flavor. This year, I made apple-filled spice cupcakes, topped with a tangy buttermilk icing. I decorated the cupcakes like little apples themselves, with pretzel stick stems and mint leaves on top.

The Science.
    While I used food coloring to make my apple cupcakes red, the skin of real apples contains a pigment called anthocyanin that gives them their bright red color. The Sangrado apple variant produces anthocyanin in the flesh of its fruit as well, causing it to be red throughout. Researches have recently found that this color pattern is due to a whole genome duplication that occurred in the apples long ago, and created a second copy of the gene that regulates anthocyanin pigmentation [1]. In Sangrados, the extra gene has a slightly different sequence from the original, and this change causes it to be expressed in the apple flesh, and make it a beautiful red. On the other hand, Granny Smith apples have green skin and white flesh, because they do not contain any anthocyanin [2]. I guess you could say that they are the albinos of the apple world.




The Recipe.

Apple filling:
3 tablespoons salted butter
5 Granny Smith apples, peeled and chopped
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

    Melt butter in saucepan over medium heat. Add remaining ingredients. Stir occasionally until apples are soft and juices are concentrated and syrupy, about 20 minutes. Cool slightly in pan while making cake batter.


Spice Cake:
Recipe can be found here. Makes approximately 28 cupcakes.

    Preheat oven to 350^oF. With a 1/4 cup measure, spoon batter into cupcake tins with liners. Spoon 1-2 tablespoons apple filling on top of the batter, in the center of each cupcake. Bake for 20 minutes or until tester inserted into cake comes out clean. Cool on wire racks.

Buttermilk Icing:
1 cup shortening
1/2 cup salted butter, softened
6 cups powdered sugar
3/4 cup buttermilk

    In a large bowl, beat butter on medium speed until fluffy. Gradually add sugar while beating, then beat in buttermilk. Tint half the icing red and the other half green. I used Wilton Icing Colors Red and Burgundy for the red, and Kelly Green and Lemon Yellow for the green.

Decorating:
1 cup sugar, divided
Red and green food color
14 pretzel sticks
28 mint leaves

    To make the red and green sugar, place 1/2 cup sugar in each of two plastic sandwich bags. Add a few drops of either red or green food color and seal the bags shut. Massage the bags of sugar until the food color is distributed evenly. If needed, add more food color to get the desired color. Pour sugar into two saucers.
    Spread a dollop of icing onto each cupcake, making a high dome in the center and only a thin layer on the edges. Roll the cupcake in the corresponding colored sugar. If the icing has an uneven shape, you can reshape it on the saucer while you roll it. To make an indentation for the top of the apple, coat your finger in sugar and press the center of the icing down.

     For the apple stems and leaves, break the pretzel sticks in half and insert one half into the top of each cupcake. Gently press a mint leaf into the icing next to the pretzel. Store cupcakes in the refrigerator in an airtight container for up to three days.

  

1. Chagne, D. et al. "An ancient duplication of apple MYB transcription factors is responsible for novel red fruit-flesh phenotypes." Plant Physiology, 2012, 160:2 (October 24).
2. Takos, A. et al. "Light-Induced Expression of a MYB Gene Regulates Anthocyanin Biosynthesis in Red Apples." Plant Physiology, 2006, 142:3 (November).