Caramel cupcakes with salted caramel buttercream
18 Feb
Caramel Cupcakes with Salted Caramel Buttercream and Candied Caramel “Glass”
Yield: 16 cupcakes
Cupcakes Ingredients
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp sea or kosher salt
1 stick of unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons packed dark brown sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla
2/3 cup buttermilk
Salted Caramel Buttercream Frosting Ingredients:
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 tbsp water
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 stick salted butter, at room temperature
1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 tsp sea or kosher salt
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line cupcake pans with papers. Combine dry ingredients; set aside. In lieu of my usual kosher salt, I used the vanilla bean sel gris I made recently. I know it’s a finishing salt, but I was curious.
Cream butter and brown sugar on medium-high speed until fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until each is incorporated, then add vanilla. Mix in the dry ingredients in three batches, alternating with two additions of buttermilk, and beating until combined after each.
Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each about halfway full. Bake for about 15-18 minutes. When done, transfer tins to wire racks to cool 15 minutes; turn out cupcakes onto racks and let cool completely.
To make the caramel sauce for the buttercream, stir together granulated sugar and water in a saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium high heat. Cook without stirring until mixture turns a deep amber color. Remove from heat and slowly add in cream and vanilla, stirring until very smooth. Let caramel cool for about 20 minutes, until it is just barely warm and still pourable.
In a mixer fitted with paddle attachment, beat butter and salt (once again, I used my homemade vanilla bean sel gris) together until lightened and fluffy. Reduce speed to low and add powdered sugar. Mix until thoroughly combined.
Add the caramel and beat on medium high speed until light and airy, and completely mixed (about 2 minutes). Pipe frosting onto cupcakes.
If you want to take the cupcakes to the next level aesthetically, then try the following recipe for making Candied Salted Caramel Rounds or Arches.
Candied Caramel “Glass”
Yields 16 rounds
Ingredients
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
1/4 tsp sea or kosher salt
3/4 cup water
Lay out a large piece of parchment on your work surface and spray with cooking oil. Fill a large casserole dish (wider than the bottom of the pan you’re using) partially full of ice water to stop the cooking of the caramel quickly.
Put sugar, salt and cold water in a heavy pan; stir over low heat until sugar dissolves. Increase heat and bring syrup to a boil. Lower heat slightly and swirl the pan once or twice so the syrup colors evenly; do not stir. When caramel is a deep amber color, plunge the base of pan into iced water for about 2 seconds to stop cooking.
Dip a spoon in the caramel and let it fall onto the parchment paper or over the covered rolling pin in a drizzle. Repeat 16 times. When caramel has hardened, remove from paper and adorn cupcakes.
(Both recipes adapted from )
Something to note about the candied caramel glass. These were a bitch to make. It took forever for my caramel to color, and even then it never hit the deep amber hue. Instead, it’s more like a honeyish color. It thickened quickly, and instead of drizzling off the spoon, it sort of globbed off. I was bummed, but followed through anyway.
I think Sprinkle Bakes could have been a little more detailed in her description—given some timing notes and hints for handling the caramel, especially for caramel newbies like myself. Oh well, you never know until you try!
However, I must say that the buttercream recipe is DIVINE. It’s creamy and light and caramely and OH MY GOD THE SALT. Mmmmmmmm. Possibly one of the best things I’ve made all year.
I had a little trouble with the giant closed star tip from Bake It Pretty, but I’m pretty sure it was a user error. I just need to work on my frosting technique.
This is one of more unique cupcakes I’ve ever had. The caramel glass was delicious, but it’s presently stuck to everything that touched it; my teeth, my keyboard, my hair, my cell phone (which is now stuck to my hair). The cake itself was more dense than I expected, with a consistency somewhere between cake and muffin, and more mild as well. It was sweet, with hints of vanilla and caramel, but it didn’t really stand out to me.
What did stand out was the icing, which is 100 times better than Melissa said. Salty, creamy, buttery, caramely, salty and salty and more salty are the flavors that jump out. It makes the whole cupcake work. I’ve been rubbing it into my gums for the last 20 minutes. If anyone wants to do some buttercream in the bathroom later let me know.
After this worked today, I’m going to stick to a new regimen every Cupcake Friday- a cup of water to cleanse fully my palate from my morning 2 cups of coffee.
First, I ate the caramel glass, and it was lighter than I expected, sticky but not too sweet, and really just the right size for that cupcake. The varied translucency didn’t bother me at all-I think we sometimes place too high a value on textbook perfection.
The icing was perfect as usual, and the saltiness was particularly welcome. What I liked even more was that the cupcake itself was a near-perfect balance of moistness and thickness.
Or to wrap it all up, I could eat a dozen or two of these as my breakfast & lunch for the day, and not feel sick. Maybe a bit guilty, though.
Well, not really.
This was my first participation in Cupcake Friday, and certainly not my last. OMG (full disclosure, that’s the first time I’ve used that horrific texting acronym). Indeed, like Kyle said, it was one of more unique cupcakes I’ve ever had, and unique is a very good way.
The caramel buttercream combined with the sugar glass was unbelievably delectable combination on top of the dense cake. I had the “glass” with the entire cupcake, rather than separately, and it really sang . . . for the mixing of all those flavors, along with the sea salt, was pure pleasure for the palette. One of my favorite “chocolates” are chocolate-covered caramels with a bit of sea salt on top . . . and this was in that naughty company.
The cake itself was a bit dense and “pancakey,” probably due to the buttermilk (another great flavor!), but I actually liked that, in part because I’m a pancake man (my kids demand that I make them every weekend) but also because it balanced the super silky and sweet buttercream better than an overly moist cake.
In short, that cupcake was a big winner.
A quick comment about the candied caramel glass. I made them ahead of time, and they kept just fine. Last night, after I finished frosting the cupcakes, I adorned each with a jaunty little caramel glass (check out the first picture!). They looked great, I packed them into my awesome traveling case, and went to bed.
However, once I got into the office today and lifted the lid, I saw that the buttercream and caramel glass reacted, causing the garnish to begin dissolving, becoming opaque and sticky.
I was bummed, but shrugged it off. I’d rather have a garnish snafu than dry, tasteless cakes. This is a learning experience, and I love it
For the second time, I have been won over by ingredients I generally don’t like thanks to Melissa’s cupcakes. I’m often labeled as an outcast—non-American even—for dissing Seinfeld, Bruce Springsteen, Root Beer and…caramel. But now, one of these things is not like the other for me. I was pleasantly surprised by the cupcake’s presentation—the caramel glass was a nice touch. “Cotton candy” immediately entered my mind when I bit into the glass (I ate this before the cupcake itself), in both flavor and the sticky aftermath. But I love cotton candy, so it’s okay that my hands stuck to my keyboard for a few minutes.
I didn’t realize this until Ethan’s comment, but I will agree with the pancake assessment. It worked for me, too. I did pick up on the hints of vanilla and caramel, as Kyle mentioned, and they worked well together in my opinion. The cupcake eased me into a flavor that I generally tend to shy away from, which made me very happy.
And the buttercream icing? I don’t even know why I still comment on the icing because it is always AWESOME. I wasn’t sure how the sea salt would play out, but it popped here and there (in a subtle way, if that makes sense). So yeah, Kyle…bathroom at 3:00?
Elise and Kyle: I do have one cupcake left … there should be enough frosting for 3
First of all, to hear (or see, I guess) Ethan say “OMG”… was amazing, and means we have a top-ranking confection here, folks.
This cupcake ties lemon-limoncello as my favorite so far (and perhaps just ekes them out). I loved everything about this! Both separately – and together – all three elements were out of this world.
The glass was delicious, though I wouldn’t recommend chewing. This was made to “melt in your mouth.” The buttercream was definitely the best buttercream I’ve ever tasted. And I agree that the cake was perhaps a little less flavorful than cupcakes past but you could certainly taste the caramel, the buttermilk and the hints of salt in it… yum. This frosting was on the sweet side, so a less-sweet cupcake was just what the doctor ordered.
A word on the texture of the cake – it was wonderful for me: dense and moist. The light, fluffy buttercream was its perfect compliment. Yep… the cake and buttercream from this post are soul mates. Just like the NAPCO taste-testers and Cupcake Friday.
Excuse me for my late-ish comments. I was busy in the Hades that is editorial work, which I now hate as much as the Mets and celery.
The candy-thing on top of the cupcake was superb. Its flavor and texture kind of brought me back to my childhood like that scene in Ratatouille where Anton Ego takes his first bite of the ratatouille. It filled me with delight, especially the parts of the candy that had icing on it. The combo of the candy and icing was great.
The cake itself was almost as moist as the limoncello cupcake. Very delish, and better than your standard chocolate or vanilla staples.
The icing — always my favorite — was superb. The mix of salty and sweet was phenomenal. Caramel heaven.
All in all, this cupcake has surpassed my love for the limoncello and the whoopie pie as my new favorite. I know each week is my new favorite, but truthfully I love cupcakes so much it would be very hard not to impress me each week.
Tastetester Mike reporting:
THE BEST: The cake. My god, the cake was so good, kind of like a snickerdoodle in cake form. Very different and very awesome. Moist and firm.
INTERESTING: The frosting. It was definitely different. I liked it, but I would need another sample to analyze it more. I’ve never had a frosting that isn’t blatantly sweet before, so I don’t know what to think about this one. It was very good, but it was so different I feel like I need to try it again so I can form a meaningful opinion about it.
CRAZY: The caramel glass stuff. It was good and added a nice twist, but I think I had too much on my cupcake. Probably 1/3 of what I had would have been enough. Otherwise I feel like it sort of gets in the way and is distracting.
Love love LOVE this cupcake.
Cake part: Moist, flavorful, holds its form all the way to the last bite without crumbling in the slightest. This is the perfect cupcake cake. Every cupcake should be like this.
Frosting: Oh wow. It’s a cascade of flavor explosions. First you taste butter, then you taste caramel, then you taste salt, then it all loops in that order for the next two or three minutes. This is amazing.
Glass: Tasty and VERY pretty. I love the color of it. It’s a fantastic decoration. This is the sort of decoration that brings in window shoppers.
Usual full disclosure: I’m married to the author, so I’m biased, but I mean it when I say that these cupcakes blew me away.
Don’t you mean married to the BAKER?
I made these for my friend’s birthday. They were so delicious!! Thanks for making me look like a baking rock star!! Will definitely make them again.
Hi Sherry, so glad the cupcakes were a hit! Try te salted buttercream with the mocha cupcake recipe I have (look up the chocolate covered cherry cupcakes and use that one). It’s delish!
Delicious frosting! I found your site while searching for a caramel buttercream frosting to use with my dark chocolate cupcakes. I’m super glad I found your post!
Hi Lucy! So glad you enjoyed the recipe…once you get it down pat once, it’s perfect on a variety of cupcakes. I really like to use it on mocha cupcakes
I love your site (wishing only that it had a recipe index), and have now made these cupcakes twice. Being an experimenting baker myself, I couldn’t not fiddle a bit. The second time through, I doubled the recipe for the caramel base in the icing but kept the butter and confectioners sugar quantities the same. Though some might doubt that this is possible, I found the result had even more sweet/bitter caramely goodness while losing nothing texture-wise. Give it a try.
Ooh that sounds good! The buttercream was able to take on the extra caramel without breaking? Very cool.
And as for a recipe index, that is TOTALLY on my to-do list
But in the meantime, if you click on the category of Cupcake Friday on the right in the sidebar, you should get to my recipes pretty quickly. Thanks for baking with me! And thanks for the tip!