Caramel Apple Spice Cupcakes

Delight your taste buds with delicious chunks of crunchy apple in a spiced cupcake. Using an apple pie filling, not only are there crisp chunks of apple, but the sauce is spiced and adds extra moisture to the cake. Caramel Apple Spice Cupcakes perfectly compliment the tart apple, and the light and fluffy buttercream is infused with a stripe of smooth dulce de leche (caramel). Enjoy the sweetness of the frosting plain, or sprinkle some kosher salt on top, because we all love our “sweet and salty.”

The cupcake is scrumptious alone. Seriously. I know, because I ate the first one that was cool enough to eat. Ha! My excuse was that the side cracked a little when I pulled it from the muffin pan. You break it, you buy it. 

I tend to “break” a lot of chocolate chip cookies fresh from the oven, too, but I digress.

So the cake is a Duncan Hines Perfectly Moist Spice Cake. Added to that is a can of apple pie filling, which gets diced up into smaller cubes. The sauce from the can of pie filling has been thickened and spiced with cinnamon. Together, the spiced cake mix and apple pie filling make a fantastic cupcake.

Piping this frosting is fun. The caramel has been lightly swirled into the fluffy buttercream, so each cupcake will look different from the next.

On top of that, I used different Wilton piping tips: 1M and 864.

As shown in the pictures, the cupcakes were all decorated with the same bag of frosting. Some are light, some are dark, and some have that really cool stripe of caramel.

Putting the apple spice in your cupcakes

Start by preheating your oven to 350°, and line muffin pans with 24 cupcake liners.

Then, chop the apples in the pie filling into little cubes. You can do this by pouring the pie filling into a medium-large bowl, then cutting the apples into small cubes using 2 steak knives crossing each other.

In other words, making the 2 knives work as though they were a pair of scissors. This technique, called “cutting in” is often used when mixing cold butter with flour.

You can also use a food processor, but be careful not to over-mix. The chunks of apple are part of the charm in this cupcake, and a food processor could easily make applesauce out of a can of pie filling.

Baking Caramel Apple Spice Cupcakes

So back to the cupcakes. In a large bowl, mix the eggs and oil with the cake mix. Note, water is not added per box instructions. This is because the apple pie filling will be adding the moisture in it’s place. 

Add the pie filling to the cake mixture and stir. All ingredients should be completely blended.

Pour the batter into 24 prepared muffin cups and bake for approx. 20 minutes, or when a toothpick comes out clean. See the chunks of apple in the baked cupcakes below? That’s what we’re going for here. The apple chunks give the cupcake a great texture with a surprise crunch.

Make the buttercream

Using an electric mixer, mix the butter until light and fluffy. Add the powdered sugar in batches, then add the apple pie spice, cinnamon, and salt. Beat and scrape sides until well mixed. Add the vanilla extract and beat on high until the frosting is fluffy and thoroughly mixed.

Add the caramel

Stir the can of dulce de leche to loosen it up, it’ll be thick. If it isn’t thick, refrigerate briefly. Drop dollops of the caramel onto the buttercream, which is still in the bowl. Using the spatula, cut through the mixture a few times and watch it swirl together.

Don’t mix too much or you won’t get the stripes. In fact, leaving chunks of caramel creates great stripes. It’ll stripe itself out and continue to mix into the buttercream as you squeeze the bag while decorating. 

Once the frosting is on, you have 2 choices to make: 1) which one to eat, and 2) whether or not to sprinkle some kosher salt on top. Yummy either way, just enjoy!

Mix and Match with Caramel Apple Spice Cupcakes

Apple spice cupcakes are so delicious alone, that I wanted to list a few other frosting options for you to chose from:

– Pumpkin Pudding Cake with Cinnamon Buttercream Frosting

– Brown Butter Pecan Cupcakes

– French Toast Cupcakes

The recipes listed also include the cupcakes themselves, but you can also have fun mixing and matching the frosting portions with the cupcakes. 

I love hearing from my readers, so please feel free to comment and rate the recipe. You can also follow me on Pinterest and post a picture of your own cupcake. Everyone is so clever, I love to see what you create.

Happy baking, my friend, and have a blessed day. 

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