My Fabulous Spice Apple Cupcakes - Pazazz Apples

"How 'bout them apples?" "An apple a day...." "You are the apple of my eye." We are all familiar with these phrases, but is everyone familiar with the Pazazz Apple? This type of apple is part of the Honeybear Brands of apples and is often compared to a Jolly Rancher candy because of it's ratio of sweet to tart taste. Available during the months of November to August, this apple is at it's peak!! And you can pick up yours at your local Hy-Vee or Aldi stores.

When Honeybear reached out to me asking if I would be interested in partnering with them, I immediately said yes! I am a huge apple fan, whether it's eating them raw, cooked for my version of applesauce, or baked within my spice apple cupcake, apples are always in my fridge. I mean, apples have so many health benefits. They are their own prebiotic, high in fiber and can help aid in weight loss, an antioxidant, and can help protect your brain! And when they asked if I would like to share a recipe with all of you, I said yes again! I've been baking this spice apple cupcake for a while now and the family loves them! It's a great dessert, but it also makes a hearty sweet breakfast, if you ask my dad. However, that might not be the weight loss aid they were speaking of!

So let's talk about that cupcake recipe. I'm a girl who loves a shortcut in the kitchen, especially when baking, so I reach for my favorite box spice cake mix when making this cupcake. What I love about using a box cake mix, is that you can start with the basics and then amp up the flavor with add-ins, like cooked apples, to create this spice apple cupcake! You want to add the ingredients suggested on the box which we all have on hand. Bake them according the package, however, I know for my oven, 14 minutes is the perfect bake time. From there, it's all about apples! 

For the apple filling, I treat it much like an apple pie filling. Prep your apples by washing them and getting them ready to peel. I used an apple corer to slice and core, then used my favorite knife to peel. I used three apples in total.

Once all of the apples have been peeled, it's time to dice. I dice my apples into thin pieces because I don't want a big bite inside my cupcakes. They will cook down a little, but you still want a small bite inside.

Once they are all diced, it's time to cook! I placed all my apple pieces into a skillet and add all the yumminess of an apple pie filling. 

I add a tablespoon of unsalted softened butter to the apples.

To that, I add light brown sugar and apple pie spice.

This is a true scientific measurement here. I use roughly one to just a little less than two handfuls of brown sugar. It's a "too taste" kind of thing.

A little apple pie spice goes a long way, so just sprinkle in a little for flavor.

Make sure to steal a taste, and if you feel it's a little too tart, add a little granulated sugar to help sweeten the apples. Cook down to tender. Again, you don't want a crispy apple bite. Since your cupcakes are already baked, you are adding these cooked apples to the center, so you won't have a chance to cook them more.

Now that your apples are cooked, and cooled, it's time to fill the cupcake! I use an apple corer to remove the center of the cupcake, but you don't want to go all the through. Just core mid way through the cupcake, remove, and place aside in a small bowl. You will reuse them.

Fill each cupcake with the baked apples. You don't want to overfill, but you also don't want to under stuff. It's a thin line between both. After each one is filled, replace the centers with the pieces you removed.

 

Lastly, it's time to frost! I made my own, but you can most certainly use store bought. I made cream cheese frosting using an 8 ounce softened cream cheese, one stick of room temperature unsalted butter, and a teaspoon of vanilla. Add it all to the mixer and mix until creamy. Add four cups of confectioner sugar, one cup at time, mixing in between. If it feels too thick, add a tablespoon of water to get to the desired consistency to frost the cupcakes.

Then you frost! I add mine to a piping bag, with a large star tip, and pipe in a circular motion starting on the outside of the cupcake. I added clear and gold sprinkles to the top! 

  

I served these up for book club on a cupcake holder. So cute and so yummy!! Everyone loved them!

 So there you have it! That's my spice apple cupcake using Honeybear Pazazz apples! It's honestly the easiest cupcake recipe, you just have to put in a little love when making them! 

Head out today and grab your Pazazz Apples and get started on your own apple creation!!

XO,

Andrea

*This was a sponsored post, but all opinions and recipe were my own.

A New Kind of Date Night

When you have busy kids, you have busy weeknight lives. And if you're lucky, you can take your spouse with you to the evening activity and spend it on the new kind of date night we've adopted! Date nights are hard to come by. We are lucky, because McKinley loves to spend at least one night a weekend with my parents, but not everyone has that opportunity. It can be weeks or months before you get a date night, so if possible, maybe you can adopt our new trick!

McKinley has a weekly drawing class that's an hour long, so that's an hour we can spend together. And what do most parents do with free evenings these day? Binge watch their favorite shows on any streaming network they have subscribed to. We may not be binge watching, but we are taking advantage of being able to watch one hour a week of our favorites shows we can't watch on the DVR. As of late, it's Almost Family on FOX. Have you watched? We love it!

So, in addition to watching one of our recorded shows on HULU, we're dining al fresco. Okay not really. We're dining in the comfort of our front seat of the car! But hey, this is the new kind of date night and we're making the most of it. And, we're saving money. That's the big thing. Imagine eating out every Thursday night? That's roughly $20 a week. And it would be fast food. And that's more weight gain. So, made at home dinners it is! 

I also have to be mindful of the meals for Thursday. Soup, spaghetti, or tacos wouldn't really work. I need something that's not going to drip all over the places. We've done French bread pizza, sausage and potatoes, and last night it was quiche. And I've been using the plastic containers we keep from lunch meat, but I wanted something a little "classier" for date night. So, I rummaged around in my mom's cabinets and "borrowed" her Tupperware she's had since the 70s (just look at the colors), and a couple of Pampered Chef measuring bowls with lids, which make for the cutest way to transport our dinner and making it feel like an upscale picnic! Oh, and the darling Tupperware cups I found at an estate sale this summer were the perfect way to store muffins! I also use them daily for McKinley's lunch. This is also my way of changing my carbon footprint by not using nearly as much plastic!

So here's what took place. I made the quiche earlier in the morning, so I had plenty of time to pack everything up. With his class starting at 6:15, he eats in the car, so I start packing dinner for the whole family around 5:15. (And his dinner consisted of a hotdog and sides. He doesn't eat quiche!) If I had waited to make the quiche at 4:00, I would have been strapped for time. I waited to the bake the muffins in the afternoon, and while they baked, I prepped the fruit bowls. Everything was coming together. I heated up the quiche a piece at a time, added it to the Tupperware bowls, packed up all the food, and we headed out the door! 

Check it out!

What I do need is a chic way to transport the food. My J.Crew bag, though super compact, took a beating when a fork poked through on the way home! 

Two cold parents chillin' in the car! We ate, chatted a little, watched our show (which always creates a conversation), and then picked up our kiddo in the classroom at 7:15!

Other ways we're dating these days is watching The Bachelor on a sleepover night while keeping the funds in check by staying home. We made the conscience decision to keep going out for dinner to a minimum this calendar year. Maybe once a month and trying a new local place to support our KC entrepreneurs! And, we are thinking ahead to summer and a couple of out of town family weekends. 

What are you doing for fun date nights? Are you staying in as well? Going out? Let's talk about all of the ways we can date in this new age and keeping that dating spark alive!

XO,

Andrea