HI ALL!!!! I AM SO EXCITED!!! My Red Velvet Vampire Cupcakes are a finalist in the Yummly Halloween Contest! PLEASE GO VOTE by hitting the like button below my Vampire Cupcakes  at Yummly here. 

The tangled web of blogging. It’s been an odd ride this last 15 months to say the least.  What started out as a strange obsession with baking and a random “What the heck” moment when clicking “publish” on my first post has turned into an even stranger obsession with blogging.

Writing for strangers, reading strangers’ blogs, and giving endless hours of thought as to how the crazy world of photography lighting works was not part of the plan.  I am a tech idiot.  I never thought in a million years I’d be on WordPress, Blogger, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.  I have written 131 posts, have taken about 10,000 pictures of food and read my comments like they are front page news.

I have been confused in this blogging world to say the least and have contemplated signing up with FoodBuzz, Foodie Blog Roll and others and have opted out for the time being. Am I envious when I see many of you savvy bloggers out there in the Top Nine? You bet! And do I wonder why on earth I haven’t opted in to gain more notoriety? Absolutely!

But yet, I sit here, impatiently waiting for a nod here and there, as quiet as I am in the blog world.  Freshly Pressed is a pipe dream that so many of my nice friends and their amazing blogs have had the honor of being featured on, and yet I sit here and type and try to figure out what exactly I am doing this for.

It’s for the writing, which I have come to thoroughly enjoy, and it’s for the baking which has always been a passion and now it’s for staying connected to other bloggers, because I like you. I really do.  I love how honest most of you are in your posts.  You tell it like it is and if you don’t, then I usually move on.  I love how much we all love food and get annoyed at the sun going down when our beautiful post is ready for its photo shoot. I love how we all agonize over lost shots and fallen cakes. It’s a bit of a fraternity I think— A group of crazy people I am sure.

I love that people have tried my own creations and LOVE THEM! That is amazing! I had never invented a recipe before this blog and now I do alot of the time.  I love when I just know that a recipe needs a little of this or a little of that to take it to stardom.  Baking is not as much a science as the legend tells, and I am able to wing my way through almost any twist I want to put on my baked goods.

So  there I was this morning, expecting nothing unusual happening on this little unknown blog when I found out that my Red Velvet Vampire Cupcakes made the Halloween Recipe finals on Yummly! Woo hoo!  Yeah, they may be in like 5th place at the moment and may end up in 10th, but someone noticed them and that’s really cool. So please go vote for them here (scroll down on Yummly below my Vampire Cupcakes and click “like”) because the people whose stuff is a 100 times cooler than my cupcakes, they have like 180 votes…and I need a few more…just to save face you know.

Anyhow, I believe I owe you a recipe for something scrumptious, and I will provide you with the next best thing to biting into a caramel apple. These spicy, apple-y, dripping with caramel cupcakes might just make you pass out from happiness. They taste like you are biting into the best caramel apple ever but they are SOFT and creamy and your teeth won’t get stuck in them. I always hate that.

This post was shared on Crazy Sweet Tuesdays.

Caramel Apple Cupcakes
Adapted from Cupcake War Winner from Food Network
Makes about two dozen cupcakes
2 cups granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3 apples, cored, peeled, and chopped (recommended: 2 Granny Smith and 1 Fuji)

Cream Cheese/Butter Cream Frosting
1/2 c. room temperature butter, barely softened
1 12 oz pkg cream cheese
3 c. powdered sugar (more if needed)
1 t. vanilla
Caramel for drizzling on top

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line 2 regular size cupcake pans with cupcake liners.

In a large bowl using an electric mixer on low speed, combine the sugar, eggs, butter, and vanilla extract until blended. In a separate large bowl, combine the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture, mixing on low until blended. Stir in the apples.

Fill the cupcake liners three-quarters full with batter and bake until the cupcakes spring back when touched with your finger, 15 to 20 minutes. Let cool in the pans for a few minutes, and then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

Beat butter and cream cheese together in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attention on medium speed.  Add powdered sugar one cup at at a time and beat. Add vanilla and beat. If the frosting is not fix enough to pipe, then add more powdered sugar 1/2 c. at a time until it has reached the desired consistency. Frost the cupcakes with either a piping bag and tip or the easy way with a knife. Either way, it will taste great!

Drizzle with caramel sauce. I put mine in a condiment squeeze bottle and drizzled it that way.

Enjoy!