Caramel Cupcakes

Well, how is YOUR summer going so far?  Happy to not have schooling every day on top of everything else: cooking, cleaning (oh the cleaning!), working, laundry, etc.?!  My family is trying to keep up with reading & math on weekdays, but we need more TO DO’S!  And this week, my teen got her first summer project: making cupcakes to celebrate my girlfriend Melissa!  Jillian’s first research project of the summer: finding a delicious cupcake recipe.  Raise your hand if you can subscribe to THIS summer school?! 😉

She did a little research, scrolling Pinterest, and found this recipe from baker by nature that we adapted for our project. Jillian put the ingredients on the grocery list, and we went to work.

The cupcakes were made the day before.  A little secret ingredient: cinnamon.  Yummers! The cinnamon adds a smokiness to this otherwise basic cake mix. It reminded me of these gingerbread cupcakes.

The original recipe said it made 12 cupcakes. Oh, it made more than that!  I was able to get 16 total cups filled 3/4 up and the frosting recipe covered them all.

But the one thing that makes this recipe special is the frosting!  It was a-maz-ing.  You first make a caramel over the stovetop.  Jillian remarked, “You mean, I just made caramel for the first time?”  Yes, you did honey.  First lesson in summer baking school: learn to make a caramel sauce!  To finish the frosting, transfer the caramel to the bowl of a standing mixer and add powdered sugar a little at a time.  Oh WOW!  It was divine. Once incorporated, transfer the frosting to a ziplock and pipe it onto the cupcakes. The consistency was perfectly smooth!

What would I change?

What would I do differently?  Well, I would add a filling.  The recipe calls for a caramel filling which we did not do.  I would not skip this step next time. The cake was a little dry without the frosting.  But, if you added a caramel filling, I think that would solve the issue.  I would also make sure the cakes don’t bake too long.  Ours were slightly over-cooked which I think was the real culprit of the dry consistency.  Bottomline: knock this recipe out of the park by adding a caramel center!

Topped with a little dark chocolate caramel candy and BAM!  You have a very tasty dessert!

Happy Baking, y’all!

xo, Melis