It was a friend's birthday last Tuesday and we had a morning tea at work to celebrate. She is a caramel fan, so I made her these Caramel Lovers Cupcakes to celebrate. I also brought in the chocolate cupcakes and some chestnut cupcakes for a bit of variety.
I find caramel to be really really sweet. I'm not a big caramel fan because of this, I need something to offset the sweetness, like salt in salted caramel. I did sneak a (very small) pinch of salt into the icing on this cupcake, but it wasn't enough to cut through the sugar. That being said, they were very nice. It was just that you could only have one.
In the Crabapple Bakery Cupcake Cookbook, they include directions to do the Crabapple "signature swirl" with the icing. I've been trying to get this on every non-buttercream-iced cupcake I've made and I still have no idea how it works. I want my icing to be swirly! The sad thing about that is that there's even pictures in the instructions and I can't get it.
Caramel Lovers' Cupcakes
from Crabapple Bakery Cupcake Cookbook by Jennifer Graham, p 109
(I halved the recipe below and made 12 small cupcakes and 12 muffin sized cupcakes)
3 1/3 cups plain flour
3 tsp baking powder
100g butter
2/3 cups soft brown sugar
1/4 cup golden syrup
1/2 cup cream
2/3 cup water
150g softened butter
1 3/4 cup castor sugar
4 eggs
Preheat oven to 170 degrees C. Line trays with cupcake liners.
Sift the flour and baking powder together.
Combine 100g butter, brown sugar, golden syrup and cream in a heavy based saucepan over medium heat. Stir occasionally with a flat bottomed wooden spoon until the sugar has dissolved. Turn the heat up to high and boil for at least 5 minutes. Take off the heat and cool to room temperature.
Once the caramel sauce has cooled, whisk together with water until well combined.
In another bowl, cream the butter for 1-2 minutes. Add the castor sugar a third at a time, beating well after each addition. After the last addition, beat until the mixture is light and fluffy and the sugar is almost dissolved. Add eggs one at time, beating for 1 minute after each addition or until mixture is light and fluffy.
Add a third of the flour mixture to the creamed mixture and beat on low speed until combined. Add half of the caramel mixture and beat until combined. Repeat this process. Add the remaining third of the flour and beat until thoroughly combined; do no over-beat as this will toughen the mixture.
Spoon mixture into cupcake papers, filling each to just over half full (this mixture rises a lot). Bake for 18 minutes or until a fine skewer inserted comes out clean. Remove cupcakes from the trays immediately and cool on a wire rack for 30 minutes before frosting.
(Initially I did not read the second page of the recipe and just started filling to three quarters full and I was only making 12 muffin sized cupcakes. When I turned the page and saw the warning, I took out my smaller cupcake tray and removed a full teaspoon from each of the big ones into the little ones. This is how I ended up with 12 big ones and 12 little ones.)
Real Caramel Sauce Frosting
from Crabapple Bakery Cupcake Cookbook by Jennifer Graham, p 147
(I halved the recipe below, but only used 2 cups of icing sugar instead of 4. I also needed to add a small amount of extra cream to make it spreadable)
100g butter
2/3 cups soft brown sugar
1/4 cup golden syrup
1/2 cup cream
8 cups icing sugar
Combine 100g butter, brown sugar, golden syrup and cream in a heavy based saucepan over medium heat. Stir occasionally with a flat bottomed wooden spoon until the sugar has dissolved. Turn the heat up to high and boil for at least 5 minutes. Take off the heat and cool to room temperature.
Add half of the sifted icing sugar to the cooled caramel mixture and use an electric mixer on medium speed to beat for 3 minutes or until the mixture is light and fluffy. Add the remaining icing sugar and beat for a further 3 minutes opr until the mixture is light and fluffy and of a spreadable consistency. Add extra cream if the mixture is too dry or extra icing sugar if the mixture is too wet.
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