Apple Cupcakes with Honey Mascarpone Icing

Happy (Jewish) New Year!! For those of you who don't celebrate, one of the key culinary features of the Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) meal is the dipping of apples in honey. We do this to bring sweetness to the year to come.  So, you know, you could take the reasonably healthy route of just dipping apples in honey-- or, you could be me and add a zillion calories to the process by making apple cupcakes with honey mascarpone icing.

Dude-- can we say Worth.The.Calories???????

I'm really quite pleased with myself on this little invention. I have been building this one in my head since last Thanksgiving, when I made this caramel-apple cake. A few months later I got the idea for a mascarpone icing when I saw this recipe on pinterset. From there, I Frankensteined together my creation. So, without further ado.....



(For a printable version of this recipe, click here)
Apple Cupcakes with Honey Mascarpone Icing (Yield - 22-24 standard cupcakes)

The Cupcakes

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoons baking soda

½  teaspoon baking powder

½  teaspoon salt

1 teaspoons ground cinnamon

½  teaspoon ground allspice

½  teaspoon ground cloves

¾  cup unsalted butter, room temperature

1 ¼ cups granulated sugar

1 large egg

2 cups sweetened applesauce

The Icing

½ cup butter, room temperature

4 tablespoons honey

8 oz. mascarpone cheese

6 cups powdered sugar

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

2-3 tablespoons milk or cream

Step #1 – Pre-heat oven to *400.

Step #2 – Mix together the butter, sugar, egg and applesauce with an electric mixer. (The butter gets often gets clumpy in this step and it might look kind of gross, but don’t panic.)

Step #3 – In a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and spices.

Step #4 – Add the flour mixture to the butter/sugar/applesauce mixture and mix with an electric mixer until well incorporated.  (At this point, the butter lumps that you see after step #2 should be gone and the batter should be smooth.) 

Step #5 – Fill cupcake papers ¾ of the way full with batter. Bake for 7 minutes at 400*, then reduce the heat to 350* and bake for an additional 7 minutes. Cupcakes are done with they are golden brown on top and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. 

For the icing….

Mix the butter, honey, mascarpone and vanilla together until well combined. Slowly add the sugar. Add the milk if the icing gets too thick.  Add more sugar/milk to get desired consistency.  This makes a lot of icing, which I like since I pipe mine on with large icing tips. If you are spreading it on as opposed to piping it, you may want to half the recipe.