Mini Apple Spice Cupcakes 3 Ways

Mini apple spice cupcakes 3 ways are perfect for fall! These bite size cupcakes are moist, delicious and are easy to make with the help of a Foodstirs baking kit and a few ingredients! What makes them even more sweet is that we are sharing 3 different ways you can decorate them from super simple to oh so chic!

Fall isn't just for pumpkin spice! Apple spice us just as nice... and tasty! We transformed a Foodstirs Celebration Cupcake Baking Kit into something sweet for fall. I had a few ideas, of course pumpkin was one, however I thought it might be nice to do something with apples and cinnamon. The baking kit comes with an organic vanilla cupcake mix and frosting, plus cupcake liners, sprinkles and cupcake toppers that I will save for another project. My idea was to turn them into bite sized apple spice cupcakes and decorate them to look like apples too.

Mini Apple Spice Cupcakes 3 Ways:

Foodstirs Celebration Cupcake Baking Kit
1 medium sized apple
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon vanilla bean paste

To make: Preheat oven to 325. Peel, core and finely dice a medium sized apple. In one bowl mix the wet ingredients per instructions and add the vanilla bean paste. In another bowl add the dry cupcake mix and add the cinnamon. Add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture slowly and in stages. Once mixed fold in the finely diced apple pieces. Line a mini muffin baking pan with midi brown cupcake liners. Fill each liner about 2/3 full with the batter. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until the toothpick comes out clean. Cool for a few minutes in the pan, then remove and place on a cooling rack.

Once the mini apple spice cupcakes have cooled it's time to mix the frosting and get to decorating! Mix the frosting per the package instructions. You want the frosting a little on the stiff side so it will pipe well and hold its shape on the mini cupcakes. The first example below is our minimalist take on apples in classic white. To pipe the frosting on the mini cupcakes use a jumbo plain frosting tube #808 in a clear disposable piping bag. Pipe a round of frosting on the cupcakes. Break a skinny pretzel stick in half and add a piece to the top of the frosting round to make the apple stem. Simple and sweet! You could pipe on a little green leaf using a small leaf frosting tip to turn them into white pumpkins... although I would adjust the cupcake mix and forgo the diced apple and add pumpkin spice. Ooooh, the ideas! The vanilla cupcake mix is a great base for all kinds of flavors that you could create!

Our second way to decorate our mini apple spice cupcakes features our new all natural red nonpareils. After you pipe the round of frosting on top of the cupcake and add the pretzel stem you want to add the sprinkles right away so they stick. The all natural sprinkles are made with quality ingredients and dyes from plant sources. The color is not a traditional red, it is a pink-red which turned out to be a lovely shade for our mini apple spice cupcakes. We have a variety of colors of all natural sprinkles that are now available!

Our third way to decorate our mini apple spice cupcakes is to pipe the frosting just as you did with the other 2 ways, add the piece of pretzel for the stem and then allow the frosting to set for a few hours to form a crust (get a little hard). Once you can lightly touch the frosting and it feels stiff so you don't leave a mark it is time to paint! Put a little TruColor Red Shine Food Paint Powder in a paint holder or small paper plate. Add a touch of water to turn the powder into a semi thick paint. You don't want the paint too watery. Using a soft medium sized paint brush carefully paint the frosting. Tip: Allow your frosting to set for at least 3-4 hours before painting for best results. This all natural paint creates a stunning and realistic look to the cupcakes.

We had fun baking with Foodstirs baking mix and creating something sweet for fall from their celebration cupcake kit. The mini apple spice cupcakes turned out moist, delicious and made the entire house smell like fall! Creating 3 ways you can decorate them from easy to realistic gives you inspiration to make these at home yourself! They were so good you might eat two...or three!

We've started doing weekly sales in our shop starting every Sunday night. Many of the products featured in this post plus other great fall baking items are on sale now through next Sunday 10/9/2016. Head to our weekly specials page to shop the sale!

Happy Fall!

Esther & Shauna

PS: If you enjoyed our post please share the love and pin it to save for later!

*We were supplied the baking mix from Foodstirs. All opinions and creations using the mix are our own.

This post was written, styled and photographed by Esther of The Bakers Party Shop. If you share a photo from our post a link must be displayed back to this post and credit given to The Bakers Party Shop. All photos and content are copyright of The Bakers Party Shop - The Bakers Confections, All rights reserved 2016.

Bonus: You can easily adjust the baking mix to turn your apple mini cupcakes into pumpkins! Forgo the apples and cinnamon and add in pumpkin pie spice and paint them orange! Use TruColor Orange Shine Food Paint instead of red as shown in the 3rd decorating example and white pumpkins are trendy too!