Another Trip to the Orchard

Sorry about the lack of posts of late, I know it’s been over a week since my last. It has been an incredibly busy time for me, I’ve been travelling a lot lately, and had a whole lot of work to do, and just haven’t had the time to bake. Fortunately, my schedule has opened up, and my friend C______ has come to visit. Today we made a trip to the apple orchard, and then made some apple cupcakes. It seems like every time I go to the orchard a cupcake results. These cupcakes were pretty similar to those actually, I made an apple chiffon cake, filled with apple curd, and topped with a spiced whipped cream. These cupcakes tasted really good, but were a bit messy to eat. The curd wasn’t quite firm enough, and so really leaked out when people bit into them. I used muscavado sugar in the cupcakes, which I was hoping would add some depth of flavor, which it did. If you don’t have it, substituting plain granulated is just fine.

I had a little trouble with the curd for these cupcakes. I used my standard curd recipe, but when it went to set it separated, I don’t know why. I ended up putting it back on the heat and adding another egg and more lemon juice. This caused it to come together. My guess is that if everything went in at the start, it would come out fine, and that’s how I’ve listed the recipe. If other people try it and have trouble, I can work on figuring it out, otherwise, there are other recipes for apple curd online.

Apple Cupcakes

Makes 14 cupcakes

1 ½ cups flour
½ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
1 cup muscavado sugar
2 eggs
3/8 cup vegetable oil
½ tsp vanilla
½ tsp lemon zest
½ apple juice (I used Mott’s all natural) 

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. Whisk in the sugar.

2. In a separate bowl beat together the eggs, oil, apple juice, and vanilla

3. Fill cupcake liners with a ¼ cup measure. Bake cupcakes for ~20 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean (the recipe at cupcake bakeshop says to bake for 30 minutes). These cupcakes are very moist, and somewhat sticky on top.

Apple Curd

Makes about a cup

3 egg yolks

1 whole egg 

¾ cup sugar

½ cup apple juice (I used Mott’s all natural) 

¾ tsp lemon

3 Tbs butter, cut into chunks

1. Whisk together the egg yolks, sugar, Apple Juice, and lemon juice. Place the mixture over a double boiler and begin heating.

2. Stirring constantly, heat the mixture until it is hot to the touch, or 170 degrees F on a candy thermometer. Make sure you don’t let the mixture get to boiling.

3. Remove the mixture from the heat, and let it sit for 30 seconds. Stir the butter into the curd until it melts. Put the curd into the fridge to let it set.

Spiced Whipped Cream

Makes more than you need

2 cups whipping cream 

¾ cups powdered sugar 

¾ tsp cinnamon 

½ tsp fresh ground nutmeg

1. Using a chilled bowl and beaters, beat the whipped cream and the powdered sugar until stiff peaks begin to form.

2. Add the cinnamon and nutmeg. Beat to combine, scrape down the sides and beat to combine again. Refrigerate until using, and re-whip right before using.

Assembly

1. Use a knife to cut a cone in the top of the cake. Cut off the bottom of the cone.

2. Fill the hole with apple curd, place the top of the cone back over the hole.

3. Frost with whipped cream.