Persimmon Cupcakes and Cranberry Icing

I saw persimmon's in the store, and since I've never eaten one before, decided I had to buy them and find a way to use them. Of course, I always think of cupcakes first :)

Apparently you can substitute persimmon into any recipe that uses pumpkin. I based my recipe off of Cupcake Project's recipe.
Persimmon Cupcake RecipeYield: 8 cupcakes (The original yield was 12, but I halved the recipe, and here are the updated amounts.)

• 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 3/4 cups sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1/4-1/2 cup persimmon pulp (the insides of 1 seeded over-ripe persimmon)
• 1/4 cup orange juice

1. Preheat oven to 350ºF.
2. In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together flour, pumpkin pie spice and baking soda.
3. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar, then mix in eggs, persimmon pulp and orange juice until thoroughly combined.
4. Slowly add the flour mixture and mix until fully incorporated.
5. Fill cupcake liners ¾ full with batter
6. Bake for 30 minutes or until a toothpick can be inserted and removed clean. (I baked mine for 28 minutes, but they were a little overdone. I would recommend checking at 20, and every few minutes after until they are ready).

Cupcake project lists a persimmon frosting recipe as well if you follow the link above, but I decided since cranberries were aplenty at the grocery store, that I should make a cranberry frosting, I based my recipe off a basic royal icing recipe.

Cranberry Icing

1 large egg white
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
1 3/4 cups confectioners (powdered or icing) sugar, sifted
1/2 cup cranberry mixture

To make cranberry mixture, take approx. 1 cup fresh cranberries, and boil on the stove with 1/4 cup water and 1/4 cup sugar until turns into a jelly. Cool.
In the bowl of your electric mixer (or with a hand mixer), beat the egg whites with the lemon juice. Add the sifted powdered sugar and beat on low speed until combined and smooth.

Hand mix in the cranberries. The icing needs to be used immediately or transferred to an airtight container as royal icing hardens when exposed to air. Cover with plastic wrap when not in use.

Apple Pecan Cinnamon Rolls

Now, these aren't technically cupcakes...more like cinnamon rolls baked in a cupcake wrapper...but I count them anyways :) And they have an apple cider glaze on top. Mmmm.

I made these for my birthday this year, and they were good! Better if you heated them up in the microwave for about 30 seconds, otherwise the dough was kind of hard. Tasted good, but I like them warm and a little mushy!
The recipe was taken from Cupcake Project via Paul Deen.
The original recipe says the yield is 24, that's how many I made, but I probably could've gotten another 4-6 out of the dough fairly easily.

Cinnamon Roll Ingredients
2 cups 2% milk
1 tablespoon (.5 oz) active dry yeast
1/3 cup sugar2 teaspoons salt6 ½ cups all-purpose flour, divided
2 eggs¼ cup unsalted butter, room temperature

Filling Ingredients
½ cup unsalted butter, melted
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
3 tablespoons cinnamon
1 cup loosely chopped pecans (I only used 1/2 cup)
2 cups finely chopped tart apples (I didn't measure the apples, just cut up two regular sized green ones)

Directions
In a small saucepan or a microwave oven, warm milk to about 110 F. (I don't have a thermometer, so I just guessed and warmed it in the microwave but didn't let it boil)
In a large mixing bowl, dissolve yeast and sugar in the milk.
Add salt and two cups of flour and beat for two minutes.
Beat in eggs and butter.
Stir in the remaining flour a half cup at a time, beating well after each addition.
Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic (about five minutes).

(Here I tried to use my regular hand mixer, and it made a messss! I changed my mind after dough got stuck all up onto the base of the mixer, and put it in my bread maker to knead instead. Definitely knead by hand or use a kneading attachment for your mixer if you want to avoid my mistake! Or throw it in a bread machine through the kneading cycle like I ended up doing.)

Place the dough in a large bowl and cover it with a towel. Set in a warm place and allow to rise for 40 minutes or until approximately doubled in volume.
Roll out dough into a long rectangle about 1/4” thick.

Brush with about half of the melted butter. (I poured it on and rubbed it in with my hand)

To make the filling, in a medium-sized bowl, mix sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon, pecans, and apples.
Spread the pecan/apple mixture evenly over the dough, leaving about an inch empty on all sides.

Roll dough over itself from back to front along the long side of the rectangle to form a log. Slice the log into 24 even pieces.

Line cupcake tins with cupcake liners and place each piece of the log in a cupcake liner. If they don’t fit, fold the ends together to make a “C” shape. The pieces should come to about the top of the liners. (It was easier for me to get the dough into the cupcake liners before I put them into the tin.)

Cover the cupcake tins and set in a warm place to rise for another 40 minutes. (I skipped this step entirely, and it didn't seem to matter)

Preheat the oven to 350 F.
Evenly distribute the remaining ¼ cup of melted butter over the tops of the cupcakes. (I also skipped this step, thinking they had plenty of butter on them already.)

Bake for 20 minutes or until the tops are golden.

Apple Cider Glaze Ingredients
1 cup powdered sugar
2 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon apple cider

Directions
In a medium-sized bowl, mix powdered sugar and apple cider until fully combined.
Drizzle over cupcakes.