Maple, apple and pecan cupcakes

It's baking day. :-) We are going to a friend's for dinner tonight and I'm making dessert, so it's time for a new cupcake recipe. Wondering what to do with some apples that had gone soft, I found this recipe for maple, apple and pecan cupcakes on Zen Cupcake. Any recipe with nuts in it is going to be quite expensive, so I'd call these 'special occasion' cupcakes. You can use walnuts if pecans aren't available.

Maple, apple and pecan cupcakes

Ingredients

• 60g butter, softened
• 1 cup self raising flour
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
• 1/4 cup maple-flavoured syrup
• 2 eggs
• 2/3 cup coarsely chopped pecans
• 1/2 cup coarsely grated apple
  
• Maple frosting
• 90g butter, softened
• 1 cup icing sugar
• 2-3 teaspoons maple-flavoured syrup

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Line a standard 12-hole muffin tin with cupcake cases.
2. Beat butter, flour, cinnamon, sugar, syrup and eggs with electric mixer on low speed until ingredients are combined. Increase speed to medium and beat until mixture changes to a paler colour.
3. Stir in pecans and apple. Fill cupcake cases 2/3 full with batter.
4. Bake for about 15-20 minutes, or until golden. Cool on wire racks.
5. To make maple frosting, beat butter, sifted icing sugar and maple syrup until light and fluffy. Spread or pipe over cupcakes and decorate with a pecan.

That also completes another 101 goal: #87 - Try 10 new recipes. Since the inception of baking day, most of my recipes naturally fall into that category. I will keep experimenting and trying new recipes and posting them here. If you'd like to try any for yourself, just search for my recipes or baking tags.