spider web apple muffins

i still have a plethora of cooking apples in our garden. recently i found a recipe for apple muffins on my friend's facebook page. however, rather than just topping it with brown sugar as instructed i decided to do something for halloween.

so i made spider web apple muffins. the recipe for the apple muffins is below. i tried making a cream cheese frosting, but it turned out very runny. i think the cream cheese here must be different because usually it has a nice frosting consistency. well, it made the spider web look nice. i also added orange food coloring. to make the spider web, first frost the muffins. then i used a black gel cake decoration to make 3 concentric circles. with a toothpick starting from the center, make a line going towards the edge. keep doing this until you get the spider web pattern. then you have a pretty spider web.

i made so many muffins that i decided to take them to church. well i found out that children in the UK are not used to cream cheese frosting (or philadelphia as they call it here). when they see a muffin/cupcake, they expect a sugary surprise. well, one taste and they rejected the muffins. oh well... at least the adults enjoyed it!

Cream together:
2 cups sugar (I use 1 1/2 cups)
2 eggs (I added another egg)
1 cup oil
1 Tablespoon vanilla

Sift:
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon

3 cups peeled, cored, diced apples (around 3 apples)
Brown sugar for topping (around 1/2 cup)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees (gas mark 4) and line muffin pan with paper liners.

Cream together sugar, eggs, oil, and vanilla. Sift flour, baking soda, salt, and ground cinnamon (I never sift and they turn out fine). Add dry ingredients to creamed mixture and mix until combined. The batter will be very thick. Add the diced apples.

Fill paper liners almost to the top, about 3/4 of the way full. Sprinkle with brown sugar.

Bake at 350 degrees for 20-24 minutes. Makes 18 muffins.