{Cupcake Monday} Apple Spice Cupcakes w/ Caramel Buttercream

I recently styled an apple themed baking party for MG Party Impressions and made some delicious Apple Spice Cupcakes with the tastiest Caramel Buttercream Frosting you will ever want to try (they were subsequently devoured by a group of lovely kiddos at my daughter's school for an arts & crafts class I was teaching).

For the cupcakes, I used this recipe that came off the back of a Land O Lakes box! The buttercream frosting is my own concoction. My measurements for the caramel are not exact since I made the frosting, to taste, but I will give you a guesti-mate of how much of everything I used.

Caramel Buttercream Frosting 
Ingredients:
1 cup (2 sticks) room temp butter
4 cups confectioner's sugar - sifted
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup (or more) Smucker's brand caramel sauce

Directions:
Cream butter and sugar together until well blended.  Add vanilla extract and caramel syrup and blend until the frosting is almost light and airy.  Pipe or frost cupcakes with buttercream and douse drizzle with caramel sauce over frosted cupcakes.

Please note - I used my hand mixer for the frosting, and I've learned.....at least in my kitchen.....the hand mixer turns out a fabulous frosting!  You might find that you have a different result with yours.

You can check out more details about throwing your own apple themed fall baking party on my post over at MG Party Impressions!