Salty sweet deliciousness make these Salted Caramel Cupcakes irresistible! This moist brown sugar cupcake is filled with a rich salted caramel and topped with a salted caramel buttercream. I try to save a bit of the caramel filling to drizzle on top for a simple decoration that makes them even more tempting!
Cupcakes have come a long way from the days of chocolate or vanilla with a smear of frosting on top. With gourmet cupcakeries popping up on every street corner, any flavor combination you can imagine is being put into this new trendy phenomenon. The combination of sweet and salty in these Salted Caramel Cupcakes makes them one of my favorites. It’s difficult to just eat one!
Salted Caramel Cupcakes
Ingredients
For the Cupcake:
- 3 Cups flour
- 2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 Sticks Unsalted butter, softened
- 2 Cups Packed light brown sugar
- 4 Large eggs at room temperature
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 1/4 Cups Buttermillk
- 1 Cup sugar
- 6 Tablespoons Salted butter cutslices
- 1/2 Cup Heavy cream at room temperature
- 1/2 Cup sugar
- 4 Tablespoons Water
- 1/2 Cup Heavy cream
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 Sticks salted butter, softened
- 2 Sticks unsalted butter, softened
Caramel filling:
- 1 teaspoon Sea salt
- 3 Cups Confectioner sugar
Instructions
Cupcakes:
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Line standard size muffin tin with cupcake liners Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl and set aside. In bowl of a stand mixer using a paddle attachment; cream butter and brown sugar on medium-high speed for about 3 minutes until pale and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time scraping down the sides between each addition. Mix in the vanilla. Add the flour mixture in 3 batches alternating with the buttermilk and beat until incorporated. Use 1/4 measuring cup to scoop batter into muffin tins. Bake for 20 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes then remove cupcakes to cooling rack to cool completely.
Filling:
- In a medium sauce pan over medium-high heat dissolve sugar whisking occasionally. Cook until sugar turns a deep amber. ( can easily burn so watch closely!) Stir in butter until melted. Carefully add a small amount of heavy cream stirring constantly. It will bubble up. Continue to add cream until all incorporated. Whisk until smooth. Remove from heat and cool.
Buttercream:
- In a medium sauce pan stir sugar and water together over medium high heat. bring to a boil and cook without stirring until it turns a deep amber. Remove from heat and add heavy cream and vanilla. Stir until smooth. Set aside and let cool for about 20 minutes. In bowl of stand mixer with paddle attachment beat butter on medium high until light in fluffy (about 3 min.) Reduce speed to low and gradually add confectioner sugar and sea salt. Scrape sides of bowl and mix until incorporated. Continue mixing on low speed and pour cooled caramel in to combine. Increase speed and beat for about 3 minutes until light and fluffy.
Fill cupcakes:
- Using the large open end of a pastry tip cut out a small circle in center of each cupcake. Pour caramel into each center.
Frost:
- Fill pastry bag with buttercream fitted with your choice of tip and frost cupcakes.
Nutrition
*recipe adapted from Sprinkle Bakes
Christina says
Um, HELLO! These look amazing! 🙂
Nicole Crocker says
Ha ha! Thanks Christina! Yes…they taste amazing too! Definitely will satisfy your sweet tooth!
LORI SCHNEIDER says
The icing in the raspberry chocolate ganache cupcake came out completely runny.. The proportions seemed off to me, but the cake was good so I went with it. It definitely can not be piped and does NOT look like your pic. I have been baking for years, and have never used that much butter in any icing. So I am extremely disappointed.. The raspberries were so expensive and now i have a lot of unusuable icing. .
Nicole Crocker says
I’m so sorry you had a problem with the frosting recipe Lori. It’s a lot of work to bake from scratch and there’s nothing more frustrating than having something go wrong! This recipe is for a large batch providing enough frosting to frost 24+ cupcakes so that’s why I used that amount of butter. The fact that it came out too runny was more likely from the puree. I’m going to assume that you did let the puree cool completely and that it was just too much puree added and not enough confectioner sugar. I usually just add a little confectioner sugar at a time to thicken the frosting if I find that my frosting is too loose. It will definitely thicken it right up. Another option is to gradually add the puree and stop when it seems to be thinning the frosting too much. Thank you for bringing it to my attention. I’m going to add note to the recipe.
Fiona M. says
Made these yesterday. Amazing!!!