Salted caramel cupcakes. What's not to love?
Earlier this year I got to shoot a few recipes with Sue from Finesse Cakes. No, don't think about using medium eggs instead of large ones. Every gramme matters, says Sue! Follow the recipe below precisely and you'll have perfect cupcakes. Check out Sue's fabulous Wedding cupcakes she's made for clients and she's recently launched a Facebook page as well where you can keep track of her latest artwork.
Cupcake Cookbooks You will Love
- Cupcakes
- The Hummingbird Bakery Cupcakes & Muffins
- Cupcakes From the Primrose Bakery
- Making Cupcakes with Lola
The cupcakes themselves are pretty straightforward to make. If you check out the recipe below, it's actually split into three parts: cupcakes, salted caramel and butter icing. The ingredients are also listed in the correct order as you would prepare the three different elements.
While the cupcakes are cooling, make the salted caramel. Some patience is needed but it's so worth it.
This is where the fun starts. Use an apple corer to hull the cupcakes. You will be filling the hole with cooled down caramel.
Warning: this cupcake is super sweet!
Lastly, we need the icing to top the cupcake with. Add some caramel to the standard butter and sugar mixture to give it its unique flavour.
Before the shoot I browsed the web for inspiration and saw some lovely examples where delicate threads were drizzled on the cupcakes. I mistakenly thought these were caramel but let me assure you that it's not. We really tried to create the same effect but caramel turned out to be a clunky decorating ingredient. Hmmm, perhaps the other bakers used spun sugar? The cupcakes turned out a bit messy but finger licking good.
📖 Recipe
Salted Caramel Cupcakes
- Total Time: 1 hours 20 minutes
- Yield: 12 1x
Description
Finger licking good cupcakes with a salted caramel filling.
Ingredients
- 130g self raising flour
- 65g caster sugar
- 65g soft brown sugar
- 130g margarine
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 2 large eggs
- 100g granulated sugar
- 45g salted butter
- 60ml double cream
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 125g unsalted butter
- 250g icing sugar
Instructions
- Cupcakes: Pre-heat oven to 175°C (temperature varies on each oven so you may need to make your oven slightly hotter or cooler) and place appropriate number of muffin cases in a muffin tray (set aside until required).
- Measure out margarine and brown sugar into same bowl and cream together until well mixed and turns lighter in colour (I mix 1 egg mixes by hand, but for larger quantities a food mixer is easier to use).
- Measure out flour into a separate bowl and add the baking powder (gently stir together).
- Add 1 egg to the creamed butter and sugar along with a tablespoon of the flour and mix well. Repeat this part of the process 1 egg at a time to give a lighter mix.
- Scoop mixture into cases (about half full). An ice cream scoop is very handy for doing this.
- Place the mixture in the oven for approximately 15-20 minutes (check after 15 minutes to see if cooked). Cakes will be cooked when they are springy and return to shape when lightly pressed on top.
- Salted Caramel: Heat the granulated sugar in a large bowl placed over a pan of boiling water, stirring continually. Take care that the water is not touching the bottom of the bowl. The sugar will form lumps and eventually turn into a thick liquid.
- Stir continually until the sugar is completely melted.
- As soon as the sugar has melted, add the salted butter. Add with care as the butter will make the mixture bubble up.
- Continue stirring the mixture until the butter has completely melted, then slowly and carefully add the cream as the mixture will bubble up rapidly again.
- Continue to stir the mixture until it comes to the boil and then continue to heat for about a minute. It will begin to rise up the sides of the saucepan as it boils.
- Remove from heat and stir in salt. You may want to add a little extra salt depending on how salty you like you salted caramel.
- Leave to cool before using.
- Butter icing: Soften the unsalted butter (this works well in microwave in 10 second bursts, checking each time to see if butter is softening)
- Carefully add icing sugar to avoid clouds of icing dust.
- Mix until fully incorporated and butter icing becomes whiter. (You can do this by hand but a mixer makes it much easier – just keep the mixer on a slow speed)
- Optional, add a little salted caramel to the butter icing and mix in well.
- Make a little hole in the top of the cake using an apple coring tool and add a small scoop of softened salted carame.
- Using a large star nozzle, pipe swirls of butter icing onto the cakes.
- Decorate with drizzles of warmed salted caramel or decoration of your choice.
Notes
Enjoy as part of an afternoon tea.
- Prep Time: 40 minutes
- Cook Time: 40 minutes
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: French
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 86.7g
- Calories: 399
- Sugar: 40.8 g
- Sodium: 142 mg
- Fat: 23.3 g
- Carbohydrates: 46.5 g
- Protein: 2.9 g
- Cholesterol: 61 mg
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Renil M. George
wonderful cake,
michelle
oh yea, these are great 🙂
jim
Making caramel using these instructions didn't work. Instead try melting directly in pan and do not stir. Also, not enough mix for muffin cases, cupcake cases would have been better.
jim
Making caramel using these instructions didn't work. Instead try melting directly in pan and do not stir. Also, not enough mix for muffin cases, cupcake cases would have been better.
Katie Bryson
Wo there Michelle they look AMAZING!!! I love the hidden pocket of salted caramel in the middle... my goodness i'd love to scoff one of those right now with my cuppa to fortify me for the school run in the cold.
Jeanne Horak-Druiff
OMG look at the state of those...!! Swoonworthy cupcakes, and I love that they are filled!
Jeanne Horak-Druiff
OMG look at the state of those...!! Swoonworthy cupcakes, and I love that they are filled!
Laura@howtocookgoodfood
There really isn't any better thing than salt caramel. I made some recently using a Paul A Young recipe and it was the best thing ever. He used way more salt than I ever would, I think that must be the secret. These cupcakes look irresistible!
Margot @ Coffee & Vanilla
Lovely cupcakes Michelle and love the cupcake cases too, the blue tones really do complement golden caramel (!)
Becca @ Amuse Your Bouche
Oh YUM. These look amazing! Stunning photos too - love the drizzle of caramel on top!
Dannii @ hungry healthy happy
i am drooling over these. It looks like the perfect Christmas treat. Yum!
Dannii @ hungry healthy happy
i am drooling over these. It looks like the perfect Christmas treat. Yum!
Jen @ Blue Kitchen Bakes
You had me at salted caramel, drooling over these cupcakes right now!
Rosa
Extremely tempting! Those heavenly cupcakes are simply irresistible.
Cheers,
Rosa
kellie@foodtoglow
Wow! These sound terrific, Michelle! Too bad you made these awhile ago, so there's no chance you could courier some up to Edinburgh. 🙂