First of the Fall Cupcakes

I am a tad behind on my blog posts lately, however today IS the first day of fall so it's pretty appropriate that I should write this post today!

Last weekend I made the first of my fall cupcakes. Let me tell you, they are beautifully delicious. I seem to say that quite often about my baked goods but it's a true statement of fact. These cupcakes are so good you can't go wrong with them. I honestly can't take any credit for the cupcakes themselves, I used Martha Stewart's recipes with no alterations of my own. I found them on her website and really favored them for their richness of flavor and also simplicity as far as the list of ingredients and baking directions go.

For the pumpkin cupcakes I made a cream cheese Swiss meringue buttercream. I don't personally like cream cheese frostings all that much so I wanted the light and not-so-sweet nature of the SMB combined with a light dose of cream cheese. Believe me, this buttercream was a perfect balance of flavor and texture, especially paired with the pumpkin cupcakes. I would probably even top these with some pecans the next time. The one thing to keep in mind if you ever try a recipe like this is, the cream cheese makes the SMB soft so it's wonderful for icing but not piping onto cupcakes! They don't need to look fancy though, the taste supercedes appearance! They are also incredibly moist and stay that way for several days after baking.





















For the apple spice cupcakes, these are rich and dense on their own and really probably don't even need buttercream. I made a maple bourbon SMB for these cupcakes, also again going light on the bourbon and maple. The buttercream was amazing and it fit well with the cupcake flavor. I kept some for decorating and for the plain cupcakes I added a caramel drizzle, which was also a wonderful complement to the apple. Both of these recipes I will most definitely be baking again!

To decorate these festively fall cupcakes I made some fondant scarecrows, pumpkins, and some fall trees.





















The trees are made with dark chocolate candy melts, which I melted in the microwave and then piped the tree forms onto parchment paper. I added fall leaf sprinkles to the trees while they were still wet  then hardened them in the freezer for 15 minutes. Easy and very cute! These cupcakes are also featured in the Cake Appreciation Society's Facebook "House and Garden" photo album.


The scarecrow cupcakes will be featured in a separate blog post with a "how-to" for making fondant scarecrows!