Caramel Apple Pie Cupcake

I know this is a little late, the 4th of July was last week but life gets busy and I'm just now getting around to posting about the cupcakes I made for the 4th. I looked all over the internet for ideas for 4th of July cupcakes and I came back with everyone doing red, white, and blue. Very festive of course but I wanted to go for something a little different. Normally I make an apple pie for the 4th since I equate America to baseball and apple pie. (Now it's more like hamburgers) So, I took that idea and make a caramel apple pie cupcake. I made pie crust stars to help incorporate the apple pie feel.

I used a yellow cake mix, one can of apple pie filling and some caramel. You could make your own caramel but I decided to keep it a little easier.

My daughter couldn't keep her hands away from the caramel, after this picture was taken we ended up sitting next to the caramels, unwrapping a few, or a lot, and eating them. My 14 month old walked around smacking her lips.

For the cupcake I wanted to have some apple in the cake but I didn't want it to be too overwhelming so I used 3/4 cup apple pie filling in the cake mix. I used 1/2 cup apple cider instead of water or milk to help bring out the apple flavor. I added 1/2 cup vegetable oil and 3 eggs. I also added 1/2 tsp cinnamon but next time I think I'll bump that up to 1 tsp.

I unwrapped 25 caramels and added 1/4 cup of milk to them and melted them in the microwave. Then I took 1/4 of a cup of the melted caramel's and added it to the cake mix. Using the blender helped crush the large apple pieces so when you ate the cake they weren't prominent.

For the pie crust I used a basic flaky crust recipe I found on allrecipes.com. I wanted it to be a little fancier so I added 1 tsp. cinnamon and 1/2 tablespoon sugar but in the end I couldn't taste the cinnamon or sugar, next time I'll bake the pie crust and then dip them into some cinnamon and sugar or I'd go with a sugar cookie dipped in cinnamon and sugar.

I wanted the frosting to be a caramel frosting but I ended up with a butter pecan taste instead. I used the rest of the caramel about 1/2 a cup and I used 3/4 cup butter flavor shortening (I think this is where I went wrong) and 3 cups powdered sugar.

I hollowed out the middle of the cupcake and cut up the rest of the apple pie filling I had then added the rest to the cupcakes. Helped tie in the apple pie feel.

I added some melted caramel over the cupcake and unwrapped about 10 more and added a few tablespoons of milk. I heated in the microwave and then drizzled it over the cupcake.

Ingredients:
1 yellow cake mix
3/4 cup apple pie filling
1/2 cup apple cider
1/2 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
1/4 cup caramel
1 tsp cinnamon

Melted caramel:
25-35 caramels
1/4 cup milk

Pie Crust:
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup shortening, chilled
3 1/2 tablespoons ice water

Frosting:
3/4 cup shortening
3 cups powder sugar
1/2 cup caramel
3 tablespoons milk

Bake at 350 degree for 18-20 minutes.