Today I have the most gorgeous salted caramel cupcakes recipe to share with you. Though I say so myself, I think these were the best cupcakes I’ve ever baked, though I am a little obsessed with salted caramel so that may have biased my opinion somewhat. If it’s got salted caramel in it, I’ll try it, I even discovered (and couldn’t resist trying) salted caramel green tea the other day – it was surprisingly good too!
Back to the cupcakes, these were created after I volunteered to make some cupcakes for our school’s coffee morning last week, which was raising money for Macmillan Cancer Support (more about that at the end of this post). I thought I’d have a rummage through my box of cake making supplies to see if there were any fun decorations hiding in there and found a couple of pouches of Surprise Inside Cupcake Centres left over from the last project I did with Dr. Oetker (the Strawberries and Cream Cupcakes recipe from that project can be found here). I thought this was the perfect opportunity to try out the cupcake centres, one was Salted Caramel flavour and the other Rich Chocolate, so I made two batches of cupcakes, one in each flavour, so that I could test them both. The chocolate cupcakes were delicious too, so I’m sure I’ll share the recipe for those at a later date, but today it’s all about the salted caramel!
To make the cupcakes caramel flavoured, I decided to subtly alter my standard vanilla cupcake recipe by swapping half of the sugar for dark brown sugar, which gave the cakes a darker colour and richer caramel-like flavour. I added the hidden salted caramel filling, then topped them with a simple homemade salted caramel buttercream, which I flavoured by using lightly salted butter and adding some carnation caramel to the mixture. I finished the cakes off with gold sprinkles for an extra touch of decadence. I couldn’t resist tasting one of them myself (for blogging purposes of course!), they were very sweet and very rich, a real treat!
Salted Caramel Cupcakes
Ingredients (makes 12):
- 150g unsalted butter
- 75g soft dark brown sugar
- 75g golden caster sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 150g self raising flour
- 1 pouch Salted Caramel Surprise Inside Cupcake Centres
For the icing:
- 135g lightly salted butter
- 280g icing sugar
- 3 tbs Carnation caramel
- Gold sprinkles to decorate (optional)
Method:
Preheat the oven to 180°C (gas mark 4/350°F). Line a muffin tin with 12 muffin cases.
Weigh out the butter, sugars, eggs and vanilla into a mixing bowl. Sift the flour over the top, then whisk the ingredients together with an electric whisk until the mixture is completely blended and creamy (you could also whisk by hand, but be sure to soften the butter first if you do).
Divide the mixture equally between the 10 cupcake cases and smooth the tops. Pop into the preheated oven and bake for 16-18 minutes until risen and golden.
Once the cakes are cool enough to handle (but still warm), fill each cake with the salted caramel cupcake centre mixture, following packet instructions. Transfer the cupcakes to a wire rack to cool.
Once completely cool, make the icing. Soften the butter slightly (weigh it out and pop it into the microwave for 10 seconds if using straight from the fridge), then whisk with an electric whisk until creamy.
Sift half of the icing sugar into the bowl with the butter and whisk until combined (this may take a little while, so do persevere with it!). Add the carnation caramel and sift in the rest of the icing sugar, then whisk until combined and smooth.
Spoon the icing into a piping bag fitted with a large closed star nozzle. Pipe a generous swirl on top of each cake and top with gold sprinkles if wanted.
The cupcakes went down very well at the coffee morning, with several people mentioning how much they enjoyed the delicious surprise inside them. I’ll definitely be using the cupcake centres again! I’m also delighted to say that our coffee morning raised over £400 for Macmillan, hurrah for the power of cake!
Whilst I’m on the subject of Macmillan, and going slightly off the topic of cake this seems like a great time to mention a wonderful project that my husband has put together to raise money for Macmillan this Christmas too – you can read all about the project here and or watch a quick (and beautiful) summary video of the project here or below.
Grace
Salted Caramel Cupcakes
Ingredients
- 150 g unsalted butter
- 75 g soft dark brown sugar
- 75 g golden caster sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 150 g self raising flour
- 1 pouch Salted Caramel Surprise Inside Cupcake Centres
- For the icing:
- 135 g lightly salted butter
- 280 g icing sugar
- 3 tbs Carnation caramel
- Gold sprinkles to decorate (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180°C (gas mark 4/350°F). Line a muffin tin with 12 muffin cases.
- Weigh out the butter, sugars, eggs and vanilla into a mixing bowl. Sift the flour over the top, then whisk the ingredients together with an electric whisk until the mixture is completely blended and creamy (you could also whisk by hand, but be sure to soften the butter first if you do).
- Divide the mixture equally between the 10 cupcake cases and smooth the tops. Pop into the preheated oven and bake for 16-18 minutes until risen and golden.
- Once the cakes are cool enough to handle (but still warm), fill each cake with the salted caramel cupcake centre mixture, following packet instructions. Transfer the cupcakes to a wire rack to cool.
- Once completely cool, make the icing. Soften the butter slightly (weigh it out and pop it into the microwave for 10 seconds if using straight from the fridge), then whisk with an electric whisk until creamy.
- Sift half of the icing sugar into the bowl with the butter and whisk until combined (this may take a little while, so do persevere with it!). Add the carnation caramel and sift in the rest of the icing sugar, then whisk until combined and smooth.
- Spoon the icing into a piping bag fitted with a large closed star nozzle. Pipe a generous swirl on top of each cake and top with gold sprinkles if wanted.
I hope you will want to try this yummy recipe, please pin it if you do! For more delicious treat ideas and recipes, check out the Desserts and Sweet Treats section here on the Eats Amazing blog or pop over and follow my Desserts and Treats Pinterest board for recipe inspiration all the year around!
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