Apples and Midnight Baking

It's that time of year again when apples fall in prices in shops and the apple trees dotted around start to shed their fruit, plopping them lightly onto the wet grass below.  Since starting this blog, I have become a lot more aware of fruit trees and brambles, which makes walks that much more exciting.  Cycling past my neighbour last night, out walking his dog, we stopped for a while to have a chat which is when he showed me his "scrumping" bounty - a bag full of crispy looking apples fresh from the orchard straight down my road which I never knew existed before then (the orchard not the road, I'm not that oblivious).  Happy times, I will be sure to go foraging around there later!

Apple and Cinnamon Cupcakes 

In the meantime though, I have been blog hopping around the net looking for healthier cupcake sites which is when I came across Anecdotes and Apples, which was filled with wonderful wholesome and homey looking recipes - all vegetarian with a good selection of vegan too.  I came across two recipes which just called out to be made together: apple dapple cupcakes and apple buns.  The cupcake recipe is actually for 24 muffins, so I divided everything by a third which yielded enough for 12 normal cupcakes.  I think I replaced the cream with crème fraîche and quartered the frosting recipe and still had some left over - perfect to go on my apple buns if I so wish.  I also left two unfrosted as they're scrumptious as they are, maybe with a dusting of cinnamon as well...  Originally I thought it would be a good idea to make these before church but that turned into after church then much later after church... Needless to say it was gone midnight by the time I had a batch of lovely bread rolls and cupcakes - but I think there are much less pleasant things to go to bed to than the warm and spicy scent of sweet cinnamon, not to mention the anticipation of waking up to fresh bread!  I halved the bread recipe and reduced the cupcake recipe so ended up only using the one apple - next time though I feel I would happily add an extra one to the bread (the season of apples is oh so near).  Whilst the bread was proofing I made the cupcakes, which gave me something to nibble on whilst the bread was baking - all in all a fun process albeit kind of late... For the bread, I think it needed a longer second rising and/or more flour - but I did try the lower end of the recommended amount of flour and second rising; pushed for time towards the end (bed was calling).  The resultant bread was slightly sticky and elastic - although not unpleasant, just different but still tasty! Next time...

Anyway to end, I highly recommend you visit Monet's blog, it's packed full of wholesome ideas, the next thing to have caught my attention is the avocado pound cake, I have a glut of avocados which need eating and this sounds perfect! In the meantime though, I'm off for a cup of tea and an apple cupcake.