So it was a friends birthday today, and he absolutely adores caramel. I stumbled upon this recipe quite some time ago, in the Crabapple Cupcake Cookbook, and have kept it in mind for him ever since! I made a few adjustments to personalise it a little, and it turned out quite well! Just need to keep in mind, its not the best thing for you, health wise!
Caramel Lovers Cupcakes:
First you need to make "Real Caramel Sauce" which is basically a mixture of butter, cream, brown sugar and golden syrup. You need to melt the sugar down on a low heat, and then turn the heat up and boil it for 5 minutes.
It will end up looking somewhat like this after you have boiled it! Leave it to cool to room temperature. Once it has cooled, take 1 and 1/2 cups of this, and whisk it wit 3/4 cup of water to add to the cake mix later.
Next is the actual cake mix itself. Cream the butter, and then add the caster sugar. I used less caster sugar than the recipe stated, basically because the caramel sauce is so sweet, i don't really fancy me or any of my friends getting diabetes. So once the butter and sugar are well creamed, at each the eggs one by one, beating thoroughly after each addition. Add 1/3 of the flour, and then 1/3 of the caramel mixture and fold into the mixture lightly. Repeat until all the flour and caramel are mixed in. Don't mix too much at this point, apparently the cupcake will become tough if you do.
So your mixture is ready, just spoon into cupcake pans (I used those fancy foil ones, because it was a special occasion). Only need to fill the pan halfway, this mixture rises a lot, trust me!
Put them in the oven for 18 minutes at 170 degrees, and voila!
So for the icing, basically use the rest of the "real caramel sauce" and add sifted icing sugar to it. I didn't follow the recipe, I kind of just winged it, to get the right consistency, if you add too much icing sugar, you can add more cream until you get the balance right. Then basically just frost the cupcakes, top with some cut up rolo and you're done! I added a few candles and whatnot to make it a bit more birthday-ish! But yeah, they're pretty damn tasty. Caramelicious!
