So my friends' baby turned one today. And they asked me to make cupcakes! They don't feed their kid sugar or salt so I knew they weren't going to give their kid any of my cupcakes so I went for it and made what I wanted. And I have to say, sorry kid, you missed out. Next time I'll sneak you a little bit of heavenly goodness I created tonight!
I present to for your viewing and hopefully tasting pleasure
I present to for your viewing and hopefully tasting pleasure
Salted Caramel Chocolate Cupcakes
Now I have made a lot of cupcakes in my life, I even made our wedding cake and cupcakes! And those were great, but this was better. There is a chocolate cake base, a caramel filling and a whipped cream dark chocolate frosting. And a sprinkling of thick sea salt on top. Salt, caramel and chocolate combined is unbelievable. The salt is a surprise, but it adds such a depth of flavor.
Chocolate cake
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
7 tablespoons good dutch processed cocoa powder
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla
3/4 cup buttermilk
3/4 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
2 ounces bittersweet chocolate chunks or squares
1 tablespoon butter
All my ingredients
The cake part is actually super easy. The rest gets a little bit complicated though, so have extra ingredients on hand just in case you have to redo your caramel (guilty!) or your frosting (guilty!). These cupcakes take time so I would give yourself at least two or three hours. But they are worth every minute. Every minute.
Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Line 24 standard size cupcakes tins with your favorite cupcake liners.
Melt chocolate squares with about a tablespoon or two a butter. You can heat them on the stove or just pop them in the microwave. Melt until chocolate and butter is smooth and shiny and then immediately remove from the heat. There is nothing worse than burnt chocolate. And once you burn chocolate you cannot get it back!
Place all dry ingredients into a big bowl. Oh, I have recently rediscovered my sifter. And it makes a world of difference so if you have one, use it! So I should revise my directions and say, sift all the dry ingredients together.
In medium bowl whisk together all the wet ingredients. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix just until combined. Place in cupcake tins and bake for 13-15 minutes. Now at this point I originally placed one of those pre-made caramel squares in each cupcake and baked for an additional 2-5 minutes. This turned out to be not a great move, so I would just bake the cupcakes for about 15-20 minutes. As usual while baking cakes, bake until a toothpick placed into the cake comes our clean or with a few crumbs sticking to it. Dry cake is the worst, so if you think it is almost done or you think it needs just a minute more, take it out!
So back to the caramel squares. While they were easy to place in, I hated the look of them and I was worried they would harden up and would be an unpleasant texture when people bit into them. So I waited impatiently until the cupcakes were cool and sure enough the caramel was way too hard. So I removed every single square. But then I had a whole in my cupcakes so I had to fill them with something. And so with great trepidation I decided to attempt caramel sauce.
Finished homemade caramel sauce
Caramel Sauce
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup whipping cream
Now those two ingredients look deceptively easy, but caramel is a challenge. Place sugar in a pan over medium-high heat and cook until it starts to melt and turns a little bit brown. Once it is completely melted, but hopefully still light brown, add the whipping cream to the pan. It will sputter, and the sugar might be hard and stuck together. Mine looked like a light brown rock in the middle of the cream! The first time this happened I thought I had killed my caramel. But don't give up, keep stirring! Stir until the sugar has again melted into the cream and it starts to look like caramel sauce. Be careful it doesn't get too dark or it will taste burnt! Once your get your caramel sauce to the desired color, remove from the heat and let it cool. Once the caramel sauce is cool fill each cupcake hole with caramel sauce. You will have leftover caramel sauce which you will need later for the frosting.
Chocolate caramel filled cupcakes
Whipped Cream Dark Chocolate Buttercream
1 1/2 cups bittersweet chocolate chips or squares
4 tablespoons dutch processed cocoa powder
1 1/2 sticks of butter
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 cup whipped cream
Frosting cupcakes
Melt the chocolate and about two tablespoons of butter until smooth and creamy. Set aside so that it is cool when needed. Cream together butter and powdered sugar until soft and fluffy. Slowly add the cocoa powder into the butter and sugar mixture. Fold in the melted chocolate. In a separate bowl beat whipped cream until it has soft peaks. Slowly fold the whipped cream into the chocolate buttercream mixture. Be very gentle so that you do not deflate your whipped cream. Once all the whipped cream is incorporated chill the whipped cream dark chocolate buttercream for about 20 minutes in the refrigerator. This will let your frosting firm up a little bit and make it easier to pipe onto the cupcakes. Your hot hands will warm up the frosting quickly so starting with a cool frosting helps tremendously.
Once frosted, drizzle the remaining caramel on each cupcake and then add a pinch of good sea salt to each cupcake. Your whole view of cupcakes will change after you try this.
Enjoy! And keep tasting!
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