This is a great little recipe for apple cupcakes with mascarpone buttercream if you don’t want a whole batch of cupcakes, since it makes just 3 cupcakes! You may have a little leftover frosting. So no worries about taste tasting the frosting while you’re whipping!

The other day I kept getting this craving for a vanilla creamy cake. I rarely like yellow cake (prefer chocolate!), but I do like the vegan vanilla cupcakes from native foods. There is something richer and more substantial about the frosting. So I kept thinking about how to bake something that might satisfy this funny need. The kind of frosting I do love is cream cheese. Oh my! But while it goes with carrot cake and red velvet, it doesn’t really go with vanilla cupcakes (at least I didn’t think so). So I was trying to figure out what I could use to kick up a normal buttercream frosting to something “more” and I thought of mascarpone!

For these cupcakes, I used part butter, part mascarpone, and ended up adding a little lime at the end to give it a little tang. For buttercream lovers, I think it came out really nice, but I had hoped that the mascarpone would have given it a little “more”. Next time I am going to try with cream cheese!

I absolutely love the recipe I found years ago for pineapple upsidedown cake and used it today, just changing out the pineapple for apple, reducing it by 4, and using a muffin tin. Wow. Part of the recipe is melting butter and brown sugar and putting that in the pan first. When baking it absorbs into the cake and makes it sooo moist!

Apple Cupcakes
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons light brown sugar
1/4 of an apple chopped into little pieces
1/4 + 1/8 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
Pinch salt
3 tablespoons butter (room temperature)
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 egg (about 2 tablespoons)
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon rum
1/8 cup milk

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Add the butter, brown sugar and apples to a skillet and cook until the apples are tender, pour equal amounts in the bottom of three muffin tin wells.
3. Sift flour, baking powder and salt together.
4. In another bowl, whip the butter using a beater.
5. Add the sugar and continue to beat.
6. Add the egg and continue to beat.
7. Add the vanilla and rum and continue to beat.
8. Add 1/2 the flour mixture and beat on low until just mixed.
9. Add the milk and beat.
10. Add the rest of the flour and beat on low until just mixed.
11. Spoon on butter, brown sugar, and apple mixture.
12. Bake for 20-23 minutes.
13. Let cool.

Frosting
2 tablespoons butter
2 oz mascarpone cheese
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 powdered sugar

1. Whip the butter using a beater.
2. Add the mascarpone cheese and beat.
3. Add the vanilla and beat.
4. Slowly add the powdered sugar until it is light and fluffy and as sweet as you would like.
5. Squeeze in a little lime and just barely beat.
6. Spread onto cooled apple cupcakes.