Salted Caramel Cupcakes

After extensively scrolling through the internet for a good salted caramel cupcakes recipe and I was coming up short. This was not because a lack of recipes - there are hundreds out there but I didn't find one that I liked so I was left with only option; make my own.

For these cupcakes I used:

For the cake

150g golden caster sugar
150g butter
3eggs
175g flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1tsp vanilla essence

For the icing

100g  butter
200g golden icing
50g philadelphia

For the caramel

125g butter
125g golden caster sugar
1 tsp double cream (optional)
A pinch of salt

In most cake recipes, well if you are using the creaming method anyway, the first thing you will do with your ingredients is to cream the butter and sugar until they are light and fluffy but I wanted to make caramel ones so instead of creaming the two I melted them instead.  (For added saltiness to the caramel I could have added an additional handful of salt at this stage.) Once I was happy with the consistency of my caramel I removed the pan from the heat and left to cool.

Meanwhile I did a little dance and sung into down my hairbrush while the caramel cooled.

After singing along to MTV for a few songs I was satisfied with the temperature of the caramel and proceeded to beat in the eggs…one by one…..careful not to get any shell in. At this point the mixture looked very runny but fear not because this why I added more flour than the other ingredients. Yet before folding the flour trying to incorporate as much air as possible I incorporated the baking powder and vanilla essence.

The mixture was then divided equally (well I tried to make them equal but it didn't really work) between 12 muffin cases and baked at 180 degrees for approximately 17 minutes.

With stage one complete I moved onto making the caramel filling and icing.

For the caramel I melted more butter and sugar with some salt yet feeling a tad adventurous I also added a little double cream thus making my caramel a little thicker and more fudge like. In the same way as butterfly buns I cut a groove into the top of the cupcakes before filling the space with the salted caramel and placing the piece of cake on top like a hat.

I used golden icing sugar for my icing as not only does it have a nice golden tint to it (as the name suggests) but also because the icing has a subtle caramel flavour to it. 

For the best effect I should have piped the icing onto the cakes but I have come to realisation that piping really isn't my my forte so I used the trusty spoon and knife method.

 Finally I decorated using honeycomb and butterscotch pieces. Eh voila scrummy cupcakes!