Apple and Cinnamon Cupcakes

I came home today feeling a bit down.  And when I'm down I usually try to bake something.  I was intending to make angel food cake cupcakes but had forgotten to take my egg whites out the fridge so I wouldn't be able to do those until a bit later in the day.  So I flicked through one of my cupcake books and found some apple and cinnamon ones.  My boyfriend usually loves these kind of thing and his dad seems to like them too so that was what I decided upon.  The only problem was that I didn't have any soured cream.  And what do I do when I don't have something?  I go see if I can substitute it for something else.  Oh Internet, you are so helpful that way.

After a quick search I found there were a number of things you could substitute for soured cream, one of which was soured milk with some butter for thickening.  Well, I had milk.  This led me to look up soured milk and apparently I could make my own if I had vinegar or lemon juice.  I had the latter, so I made my own.  As far as I can tell, it worked well.  I had no complaints from my taster.  He's already scoffed two.  I'll post the method for it along with the cake recipe.

For my topping I added some muscavado sugar, which was an idea that came from Mary Berry's Baking Bible.  I also made a quick lemon flavoured icing to drizzle over it, rather than the soured cream icing they had in the book.  I didn't want anything too thick or too sweet and both the people who would eat these don't particular like lots of that kind of thing.

Substitute Soured Cream - makes 1/2 cup (about 125ml) 

• Milk
• Lemon Juice
• Butter 

1. Measure out 1/2 tbsp of lemon juice into a jug or 1/2 cup measure.
2. Top up to 125ml or the top of the 1/2 cup with milk.
3. Let sit for 5 minutes or more.
4. Cream 1 and 1/2 tbsp of butter in a bowl.
5. Add the soured milk and mix together.

 

Cupcake Recipe: Adapted from Cupcake Heaven

Makes 12

•  85g/3oz unsalted butter 
• 100g/3.5oz caster sugar
• 1 egg
• 125ml/4fl.oz/1/2 cup soured cream (recipe for a substitute above)
• 150g/5oz self-raising flour
• 1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 eating apple
• Dark muscavado sugar for sprinkling
• 40g/1.5oz icing sugar
• Lemon juice

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4 and line a baking tray with 12 cupcake cases.
2. Peel and core the apple and then chop into small pieces.
3. In a bowl cream together the butter and the caster sugar until it is pale and creamy.
4. In a separate bowl whisk the egg and then gradually add to the butter mix, beating in with each addition.
5. Stir in the soured cream.
6. Place a sieve over the bowl and place the flour, bicarbonate of soda and cinnamon in it.
7. Sift it together into the cake mix, then add the apples and gently fold in.
8. Spoon the mixture into the cases and sprinkle the muscavado sugar over the top of each one.
9. Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.
10. Cool on a wire rack.
11. For the icing, add a bit of lemon juice at a time to the icing sugar until you have quite a runny consistency.
12. When the cakes are cool, use a spoon to drizzle lines of icing over the cakes.