I love festivals.
I can’t help it.
I haven’t encountered a pig race, funhouse, or merry-go-round I don’t enjoy. Bring on your strong man contests, your ring tosses, your wooden roller coasters of questionable integrity. Why, between the bells, balloon animals, and clinkity clank music, there’s enough joy here to make a circus look like a film noir.
So it should come of no surprise that I was drawn to these Hostess Caramel Apple Cupcakes. I always, always, always make a moment of having caramel apples at Fall Festivals. I once consumed five of them before going into the corn maze, where I proceeded to get lost for three hours…BUT I survived! All credit goes to caramel apples.
Out of the gate, these cupcakes are lookin’ fine. There are smells of cider, crackles of caramel frosting, and red squiggles, all squished in an authentic “I got shipped in a truck and thrown on a shelf” way. Everything is perfect. Resistance is futile.
And, ladies and gentlemen, this is one peculiar cupcake. It’s admirably different, in its own pudgy, small, charming way. There’s the spongy, floury cake, which has bits of woodsy, warm cinnamon and some sort of tanginess that feels like a moderate hint-and-nudge toward the apple, although it speaks more toward a blend of the formerly mentioned cider and melted Jolly Ranchers.
Next up to bat is the crackly top glaze, which tastes of honey and caramel and molasses and vanilla and the burnt top of crème brulée all smooshed together. It’s like an unpaid syrup-harvesting intern got lost in the woods and decided to mix all the sugars. It’s confusing and brilliant, much like interns themselves.
And then there’s the caramel filling. In a color that’s not nearly as terrifyingly brown as the cover portrays, it seems Hostess has repurposed the light, extremely sugary caramel fluff from the Sea Salt Caramel Cupcakes and smashed it in here. Fluffy and sugar-forward, this stuff is less discreet than a mammoth in the knitting aisle. Its strong blast of Cool-Whip-like sugariness levels out the cinnamon of the cake quite nicely. Between these fluffy insides and the caramel-frosted top, caramel becomes the star of the show.
Just one thing: what happened to the apple?? Sure, there was that Jolly Rancher cider thing, but it came without chunks. It came without dices. It came without nibbles, pieces, or slices. What a tragedy. The cake could’ve benefited from a Hulk smash of tart apples. Even real applesauce or apple juice would do. This hint of flavoring? Would make an apple-loving Hulk cry. Don’t make Hulk cry!
But let us not dwell on the tears of giants. As it seems to go, the simplest pattern for my enjoying something usually goes 2 moments of curiosity + 1 dose lack of self-control x 8 tons of the positive or negative feedback on tastiness, and these? Are good. The cake is soft and cinnamony, the crackly frosted top stays true to its caramel name, and the inner frosting is a delicious, crazy sweet fluff, and, if you close your eyes and make a wish, it all has a slight echo of something apple-y (although you have to wish really, really hard). Can these be a little too sweet sometimes? Are they a little unbalanced? Would I like to see more apples? Sure, but, on the whole, these cupcakes are peculiar and delightful.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to eat five of them and go find a corn maze I can get lost in.
(Nutrition Facts – 1 Cupcake – 160 calories, 50 calories from fat, 6 grams of fat, 2.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 5 milligrams of cholesterol, 210 milligrams of sodium, 26 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of dietary fiber, 18 grams of sugar, and 1 gram of protein.)
Purchased Price: $2.99
Size: 1 box/8 cakes
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Soft, cinnamony cake. Crackly caramel frosting top. Fluffy, sweet insides. Syrup-harvesting interns gone amok. Corn mazes. Roller coasters of questionable integrity.
Cons: Where be the apples, yo? Questionable presence of “Hydrogenated beef tallow.” May make Hulk cry. Getting lost in a corn maze for three hours.
I’m surprised by the rating, given how chalky and dry these look.
Wrong “discrete”. Should be “discreet”.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/discreet-discrete-definitions-examples
Fixed. Thanks!
These caramel apple cup cakes are a fraud. I love, love, love, love Caramel. I looked at the package/box, and I invite you to do the same, and on the box you see the dark caramel colored caramel but when you actually buy the caramel apple cup cakes, the inside, so called caramel flavor, is totally different then whats on the box. Its a very light colored filling. The Hostess company is pulling a “fast one” on us. Basically, they are lying and I will never buy another box of their caramel apple cupcakes.
Just bought these and they are awful! We’re throwing them away. First, I really was hoping for caramel, so that is a small disappointment. However the reason these are nothing but awful is the horrible chemical taste they have. It was like eating a cake where they used nail polish remover (acetone) in place of water, and possibly some ammonia or bleach as well. The ingredient list doesn’t list that (of course), but nonetheless there is a disgusting chemical aftertaste that is quite shocking, and the ingredient list is alarmingly long. Just buying over-processed cakes like these is pretty bad for you in the first place, but ugh – these cakes take the cake on disgusting and vomit inducing. I would not recommend them at all!
I love caramel apple but these were just wrong. I bit into the first one and almost spit it out . I did eat 1 but it left this awful taste in my mouth. This did not taste like caramel apple at all. There are several that I do give a thumbs up on, that I love like the orange cream, it’s delicious. But this caramel apple, I threw the rest of the box in the garbage. The most awful cupcake I’ve ever eaten.