Chocolate & Sea Salt Caramel Cupcakes

Totally unrelated to the cupcakes - I'm starting to feel like an official baker. Not because I've stopped making messes or nail every recipe (neither of those will ever happen). The source of this new-found excitement is an amazing early graduation gift.. a beautiful mixer from my parents! If you love to cook or bake, you have also likely heard angels singing and witnessed the skies opening if you've ever used one of these (half kidding). This mixer made life so much easier, despite wrestling with the caramel and trying (unsuccessfully) to keep it from dripping all over every surface. It was nice to have a free hand to start preparing the filling while the batter was being stirred. I really can't wait to try some more recipes using this - feeling very fortunate :)

And now onto the recipe - ever since the sea salt and caramel craze began, I've been dying to try a recipe that used it. The frosting and filling came from a couple of different sites. At the time, I also had a massive chocolate craving and decided on a whim to add cocoa powder to the cake mix. Lots of food blogs assured that this would work, but replacing the water with milk was suggested as it would help to balance out the density of the powder (they were right, these cakes were the fluffiest ever). I have to add that this recipe is very time consuming! I started this on a lazy afternoon before class, not anticipating the cooling process would take half as long as it did (still haven't learned to read the recipe completely before starting). It didn't matter.. I was feeling super ambitious and decided to make it work no matter what. Alternating the caramel and frosting between the freezer and refrigerator helped speed up the cooling process. However, I would still start this with a lot of time to kill next time. 

Another side note: these cupcakes are beautiful the first day, like little luscious sticky rolls. After a few hours, the sea salt settled into the frosting and gave a strange dotted appearance. The caramel also soaked through the cupcakes (delicious), making them very messy and sticky. All in all, I would definitely make these again! If you're a caramel fan, you will definitely love these cupcakes. In the end, they were addicting and light enough to have a few with tea or coffee :)

Chocolate and Sea Salt Caramel Cupcakes

Yield: 48 mini cupcakes or 24 regular cupcakes Prep time: 2 hours Bake time: 12-15 minutes

(The color in this picture is definitely not the best. Next goal: learn how to take and edit food pics!)

Ingredients

Chocolate Cupcakes

1 box Yellow Cake Mix

1/4 cup cocoa powder, sifted 

Caramel Filling (Recipe from Rose Bakes)

1 stick unsalted butter

1 cup packed light brown sugar

1/4 cup milk 

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Caramel Frosting (Recipe from Delish)

1 cup packed brown sugar, light or dark 

6 tablespoons unsalted butter

1/3 cup milk 

1 pinch salt 

1 3/4 cups powdered sugar 

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract 

Sea salt, for sprinkling on top

Directions 

For the cupcakes...

1. Prepare cake mix as directed on the box (I replaced the water with milk to make the batter a little fluffier). Sift in cocoa powder and use an electric mixer to mix until well combined, about 4 minutes.

2. Line a 24-cup mini muffin tin with liners. Fill each about 2/3 full and bake for 12-15 minutes. Repeat as necessary until all the batter is used up. Side note: If your oven is half as moody as mine, you may need to take the cakes out a couple times and gradually remove the fully baked cakes from the tin.  It's a pain, but I promise these little cakes are worth it!

3. Remove from pan and allow to cool completely before adding in filling. 

For the filling...

1. Cut the butter into inch-wide pieces and place in small saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the brown sugar and milk and stir frequently, allowing the butter to melt into the mixture. Cook mixture for 3-5 minutes and remove from heat. Allow to cool completely before piping into the cupcakes.

For the frosting...

1. Cut the butter into inch-wide pieces. Place in medium saucepan with brown sugar, milk and salt. Bring mixture to a boil and stir frequently, allowing the butter to fully melt. Bring mixture to a boil over medium-high heat. Once it starts to boil, lower temperature to medium and simmer mixture for 2 minutes, stirring frequently. Remove from heat and allow to cool completely before adding in powdered sugar. 

2. Beat in powdered sugar and vanilla until frosting reaches thick consistency. 

3. Allow frosting to sit in refrigerator for 30 minutes before using. After frosting the cupcakes, sprinkle on sea salt and voila! 

Side note: This frosting was insanely difficult to work with. I had big plans for using a few different piping tips, but it ended up being more of a glaze in the end. The combination of a caramel filling and glaze frosting made the cupcakes take on more of a donut flavor (which is never bad!). Also, this recipe will definitely test your patience but let each caramel mixture cool completely before working with it! It's worth the wait :)

Pineapple Easter Cupcakes

So my mom has recently become inspired to learn how to decorate cakes (psyched to have somebody to share this with!). In preparation, she bought a ton of different frosting tips and a ginormous amount of piping bags - Easter was the perfect excuse to try them out! (Although this post is super late, these cupcakes could be changed to fit any occasion!) For some reason, pineapple cupcakes made so much sense to us. We needed some fresh flavors to bring on the feeling of spring, especially since it was the first beautiful weekend of the season. Obviously they needed to be brightly colored and covered with excessive amounts of candy. 

First, I want to add that this recipe came from an awesome little cupcake book, 500 Cupcakes. It has TONS of recipes and gives little variations for each one, so you'll never run out of ideas. I especially like this one because it has vegan, lactose free and gluten free recipes that work for my friends with different diet needs!

These cakes turned out to be bright and delicious, while the cream cheese frosting was the perfect complement. Bonus: this cake would be a perfect pairing for tons of other frostings... piña colada cupcakes anyone?

Pineapple Cupcakes with Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting 

Yield: 18 cupcakes Prep time: Bake time: 18-20 minutes

Ingredients

Pineapple Cupcakes (Recipe from 500 Cupcakes)

1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

1 cup granulated sugar

2 cups cake flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

4 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup drained crushed pineapple 

Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting (Recipe from 500 Cupcakes)

1 cup cream cheese, room temperature 

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1 tablespoon lemon juice 

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

For the cupcakes...

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line 2 cupcake tins with 18 liners. 

2. Combine all cupcake ingredients, except for the pineapple. Beat ingredients together in a large mixing bowl until combined, or for 2 to 3 minutes. Stir in the pineapple. 

3. Spoon batter into baking cups until they're about 2/3 full. Bake for 18-20 minutes. Allow to cool for 5 minutes in the pan then remove to finish cooling on a wire rack.

For the frosting...

1. Slowly beat cream cheese and powdered sugar in a medium bowl until creamy and soft using an electric mixer.

2. Stir in the lemon juice and vanilla until well combined. For these cupcakes, I divided the icing into two small bowls and added about 4 drops of neon food coloring to each. These cupcakes were frosted using a medium open star tip and a medium french tip. Decorate and enjoy! Side note: These cupcakes can be kept for up to 5 days. They should be refrigerated and tasted best after letting them sit out for about 20 minutes before serving.