Baked Apple Cake Donuts with Caramel Buttercream

Donut Ingredients:
-1 C chunky applesauce
-1/2 C brown sugar
-1/2 C white sugar
-1 6 oz container Chobani Plain Greek Yogurt, 0% fat
-1/4 C melted butter
-2 eggs
-1 tsp almond extract
-a couple drops of lemon extract
-2 C self rising flour
-2 TB cinnamon
-1/2 tsp ginger

-1/2 C brown sugar mixed with 1 TB cinnamon

Icing Ingredients:
-15 Kraft Caramels, unwrapped
-2 TB butter
-1 tsp water
-1/2 C buttercream icing

Preheat the oven to 325F.  Mix applesauce, spices, sugars, and Greek yogurt.  Next, add the butter, eggs, and extracts.

Add in the flour and mix until it is just incorporated.

Grease two (three if you have them as it makes 18) Wilton Donut Pans, and fill the wells 3/4 full.  Top with a little sprinkle of the brown sugar cinnamon mix.

Bake for about 15 minutes, remove from pans and cool on a wire cooling rack.

When they are cool, put some Reynolds wrap or similar under the cooling rack, or keep it somewhere that will be easy to clean.

In a small ramekin or bowl, put the caramels, butter, and water.  Microwave for about 40 seconds, mix well, and then microwave for about ten minutes more.  When all of the caramel is melted, add the buttercream to it and mix well.  This will make an ooey-gooey topping that will stay pretty soft, but still have a hint of that amazing stickiness that caramel has.  It will to an extent seep into the cake after a day or so, so if you need it to stay put add powdered sugar and whip it up until it becomes more like an icing.

These.  Were.  FANTASTIC.  I can no longer make them as we cannot be trusted with them, they will be reserved for parties and bake sale.

I had to go take a dozen (the recipe makes 18) to my dad that way I would not eat them all.

The rest of them got DEVOURED overnight.

But I danced some on my xbox game, so that pretty much counteracts it...right?

These taste a lot like a cupcake, so if you like caramel and apples and cake these will be right up your alley.  I highly suggest having someone in mind that you can give them to because they are a wee bit addicting in the best way possible. Or eat them all and enjoy every single bite!

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