Vegan Apple Spice Cupcakes

To continue my infatuation with fall: more apple posts! This time, I used a recipe from an awesome vegan book gifted to me from the wedding. These cupcakes are light, fluffy, and healthy. Best part? They are SO fall!

I adapted the recipe to coat the apples in another layer of spice making these guys delicious delicious delicious!

Packed full of flavor these guys were originally supposed to be made with a caramel topping but I took a trick that I saw my new brother and law do (hi Andy!) and sprinkled the top with brown sugar mixed with a little bit of oil to maintain that sugar-y crunch.

See that hole in the top of that muffin? That was a sugar crater. This didn't happen to the other ones, but I thought it was pretty awesome.

Yay! More autumn baking! I made two batches of these during the week, the hubby was such a fan. AND since they're light on calories, you can essentially eat them nonstop...

Apple Spice Cupcakes
Adapted from Veganomicon

For the apples
3 apples (peeled, cored, and diced into little pieces)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon cloves
1 tablespoon flour
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon canola oil/vegan margarine/pat of butter (shhh don't tell the vegans)

Toss your apples in the spices and flour. Heat over medium high heat the brown sugar and oil/butter until slightly bubbling. Add in your apples and cook until caramelized, most of the liquid has been cooked off, and apples are soft (about 10 minutes). Your little apple pieces will look like fall in a pot! Remove from heat and let cool.

**Note: you can use more/less apple depending on how apple-y you want your cupcakes to be. Feel free to experiment!

For the cupcakes
1 cup soy milk
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/3 cup canola oil
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Mix together 1 cup soy milk and lemon juice. Let it sit for a minute and it will curdle (really?!? really. It's awesome). Add in the oil, sugar and vanilla. Sift together all your spices (double spice layer!), flour, and baking soda and powder. Incorporate into the milk mixture.

For the topping
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (I love cinnamon, can you tell?)
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon canola oil

Mix together all these ingredients. The brown sugar should look just slightly moistened.

Putting it all together: Preheat the oven to 350 and line your muffin tin with cupcake liners. Now, fold in your cooled apple squares into your cupcake mixture. It will look amazing! Fill your cupcake liners almost completely full. These guys do not rise much so don't worry about leaving too much room in the cupcake tin. Top with your topping and bake for about 20 minutes.

Cool on a rack and enjoy!!

So delicious and so fall!


Sam

Apple Hand Pies

I. Love. Fall.

I especially love apple picking, apple cider, and then coming home to make tons of apple baked goods. Ideally this would be done with crisp fall air, fall boots, and a colorful scarf. Alas - the weather was more summer today but I still got to apple pick and apple bake!

My first apple creation was these little apple hand pies. They're so adorable and delicious. They're just like an apple pie, but smaller and hand-held. Additionally, to fit the filling into these guys the apples are diced instead of sliced as in a pie. That way, you are guaranteed to get lots of apples in every bite.

These guys were full of the flavors of fall. Nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, ginger. MmmMMmm the house smelled delicious!

The best part was brushing the tops of these adorable pies with egg and then sprinkling them with large sanding sugar crystals. Absolutely gorgeous, flaky, and yummy! More apple and fall posts to come!!

Apple Hand Pies

Adapted from thefauxmartha.com

For the crust:

You can either make your crust from scratch as detailed in one of our older pie recipes, may I suggest Elyse's pie crust-off post: here

OR you can do what I did, use store bought crust! you'll need 2 crusts. 

For the filling:

About 3 apples of your choosing (mine were picked right off the tree!)

1/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon lemon juice

1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

pinch of salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

1/8 teaspoon cloves

1/8 teaspoon ginger

For the topping:

1 egg slightly beaten

Sanding sugar (optional but recommended) 

Preheat oven to 375. Peel, core, and dice your apples. I would recommend dicing them pretty small so that the pies fold over easily and so that you get lots of apple in each pie. Add in the remaining filling ingredients into your apples. 

Roll out your pie crust to about a 9X9 inch circle (or use store bought) and cut out circles about 4 inches in diameter and 1/8 inch thick. You can use a smaller or larger cutting utensil depending on how large/small your want your pies to be. Ideally a biscuit cutter would work best, but I just used the rim of a glass. You can be creative and use whatever you'd like!. 

For each circle, put a dollop of apple filling in one half and spread some egg wash along the edges of the same half. Fold over the unused side of your crust to make a semi-circle. Crimp the edges with a fork. Wash the top of the pie with some egg and then sprinkle on some sanding sugar. Finally, cut a slit or two in each pie to give the filling some room to spread. Repeat until you are out of dough or filling. 

Bake your hand pies for about 20-25 minutes or until the crust is golden brown and your filling is bubbling. Take them out and let them cool for a bit before eating...lots of them. 

Enjoy!

Sam

Cardamom Sweet Rolls

A light and fluffy, fragrant and delicious sweet roll, with the delightful scent of both cinnamon and cardamom. Plus, they’re really adorable!

Cardamom Sweet Rolls

1 packet dry yeast

½ cup milk, around 105 degrees Farenheit (watch the temperature or you may kill the yeast!)

¼ cup sugar

1 teaspoon cardamom

2 ½ tablespoons soft butter

½ teaspoon salt

1 egg

2 cups flour (I used half bread flour)

Filling

1 ½ to 2 tablespoons soft butter

2 to 3 tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon cardamom

Recipe developed from eat, live, run 

Dissolve the yeast in the milk with a few tablespoons of the sugar. Set aside for about 5 to 10 minutes while you get the rest of the dough ready. This is called proofing the yeast, which ensures that you’ll have adequate rising power. It should bubble up several inches.

In a large bowl, combine the rest of the sugar, cardamom, butter, salt, and egg.  Add the proofed yeast. Start adding the flour about ½ cup at a time, stirring until it’s incorporated each time. Towards the end, you can start kneading the flour in until a dough that doesn’t stick to your hands forms. Knead for about 5 to 10 minutes.  You’ll end up with a smooth and elastic dough ball.

Lightly butter the dough ball and let it rise in the big bowl for two hours in a warm place. It should double in size!

Punch the dough down and roll it out with a rolling pin into a large rectangle. Mine ended up being about 12 x 14 inches.  Smear the butter evenly over the rectangle.  Combine the rest of the filling ingredients and sprinkle evenly over the butter-covered rectangle.

Roll the rectangle up, and cut into 1 inch slices with a sharp knife. Place on a well floured baking sheet.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes at 350 F.

You could put a little glaze or frosting on them, or enjoy as they are. They are especially delicious warm from the oven. Enjoy! 

~Elyse

Chocolate Mint Cookies

I usually only make these guys around christmas time but they were requested by my brother so I made them! They're a chewy chocolate cookie made extra, extra soft and stuffed with andes mint chocolates until they're brimming with minty pieces!

Can you tell that they're super moist and refreshingly delicious?

I've historically tried regular cookies with andres mint and also chocolate cookies with the mint and found that the chocolate variety not only look better, but also just help meld together with the flavors of the candies - so ever since then, these chocolate cookies have been a keeper.

 Chocolate Mint Cookies
adapted from: food.com

1 1/4 cup butter, softened to room temperature
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
3/4 cup cocoa powder
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 package Andes Mint Chocolates (about 28)

Preheat the oven to 350F. Cream together your flour and sugar until light and fluffy. Add in eggs one at a time and your vanilla too. In a separate bowl, mix together your cocoa, flour, baking soda, and salt. Slowly incorporate into your butter mixture.

Unwrap all your little mints and cut each mint into bite-size pieces. I cut mine into about thirds or fourths. Slowly fold the mints into your cookies until the mints are evenly distributed.

Dollop about 1 tablespoon of dough about 1 inch apart onto your baking sheet. They spread out a bit, but not an extraordinary amount so you can fit quite a few onto each sheet. Bake for about 10 minutes and let cool.

I love a good soft cookie so I pull them out at 10 and put them onto a cooling surface while they're still pretty soft and let the heat left in the cookie do the rest of the cooking. That way when they're cool completely, it guarantees the softest of cookies!

As always, you can add in more (or less mints) to your heart's content!

Enjoy!!

Sam