The Baker Chick

Baking up a delicious life.

Ultimate Salted Caramel Cupcakes

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These are the Ultimate Caramel Cupcakes with delicious salted caramel sauce in the center, some more caramel sauce swirled into the frosting, and a drizzle of caramel on top. They are a must make!

Caramel Cupcakes

Do you guys have a “Baking Bucket List?”  You know, a list of all the things you want to tackle either in your mind or written down? I have been meaning to share mine here, hoping that having it in a public place will keep me accountable and also possibly inspire some readers to bake along with me. Hopefully I’ll be able to get that done sometime soon!

Anyway- Swiss Meringue Buttercream has been on this list for as long as I have had this blog. Everyone raves about it as being far fluffier and dreamier than regular buttercream, and I knew it was something I needed to try.

It never seemed necessarily difficult, but just complex enough that I would tend to be lazy and just make regular buttercream.  (It involves heating egg whites and sugar, whipping them into a meringue, and then adding the butter and powdered sugar.)

The best Salted Caramel Cupcakes ever- with caramel in the center of the cupcake, in the frosting, and drizzled on top!

I love the regular stuff- but often times I end up making it sugar-y sweet in order to be stiff enough to hold shape which can be overpowering at times. This stuff though- light as air, fluffy as a cloud and not too sweet at all. In fact the entire recipe only uses a cup of sugar, and yields enough for 24 cupcakes or a layer cake. I’m sold.

Once again like with the Classic Yellow Layer Cake with Fudge Filling I made a few weeks ago, I took a Free Online Class from Craftsty that outlined the whole process step by step. Watching a video on how to make the frosting made it seem way less daunting than it always is in my head and really helped me know I was doing everything right along the way. (For example, there is a stage of making this frosting where the whole mixture looks like cottage cheese and I would have flipped if they don’t show in the class how that’s totally normal!)

I wanted to pair the frosting with my favorite flavor on the planet, so I made the Ultimate in Salted Caramel Cupcakes: Light and fluffy Brown Sugar Cake, Salted Caramel filling, the fluffiest Salted Caramel Swiss Meringue Buttercream and of course some more caramel on top with a sea salt sprinkle. In short- to die for. Neither the cake or the frosting are super sweet which gives room for the caramel inside to shine.

If you like salted caramel, these Salted Caramel Cupcakes will be your new favorite dessert- trust me!

Ultimate Salted Caramel Cupcakes

Ultimate Salted Caramel Cupcakes

Yield: 12 cupcakes

Ingredients

Cupcakes:

  • 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
  • a large pinch of salt
  • 6 tablespoons of unsalted butter, room temperature
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
  • 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons buttermilk

For the frosting:

  • 4 egg whites (about 1/2 cup)
  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar
  • 3 sticks unsalted butter (1.5 cups, at room temp)
  • 1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar (sifted)
  • Pinch salt
  • 2 tablespoons vanilla extract
  • 1/2 cup Salted Caramel Sauce

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 350F. Line cupcake pans with liners, set aside.
  2. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.
  3. In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition, mix in vanilla.
  4. Add flour mixture and buttermilk alternately, beginning and ending with flour. Scrape down the bowl- don't over mix the batter.
  5. Divide batter evenly among liners, filling each about three-quarters full. Bake until tops spring back when touched, about 20 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack; let cool for 5 minutes and then remove from pan. Let cupcakes cool completely.
  6. Use a paring knife to core a small little but out of each cupcake and fill with a small dollop of caramel.

For the frosting:

  1. Over a double boiler, heat the whites and granulated sugar and salt, whisking constantly, until all the sugar is dissolved. Heat this slowly!! You don’t want scrambled eggs!
  2. Place the mixture in a stand mixer and whip on high until a peak forms and the mixture is cool, about 5 minutes.
  3. Turn the mixer to medium speed and add the softened butter a little at a time. Remember, depending on your area, you may need more or less butter.
  4. Add the powdered sugar and vanilla
  5. Swirl 2 tablespoons of caramel into the frosting and pipe or spread onto cupcakes. Drizzle with remaining caramel sauce and sprinkle with sea salt.

Notes

Base cupcake recipe adapted from Martha Stewart.

Swiss meringue buttercream recipe from Craftsy

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Comments

  7. These cupcakes look just amazing! I have had trouble with eggs curdling making Swiss buttercream, so I almost always make Italian buttercream. I don’t even like traditional buttercream anymore – I’m so spoiled :)

    Reply

  8. I watched his video and he is very detailed with the directions. It’s a great resource to have so you can see what it should look like when you are going through the steps. I have to say that I have found there is no need to keep adding butter till it gets to a certain consistency. In other words if a recipe calls for a cup of butter (most call for more) you don’t need to worry about consistency. Keep beating and it will get to that perfect silky consistency. You may want to adjust for warmer days and use less, but you wont need to add more to get that lovely consistency SMBC is known for. If you’ve never made it before it would be confusing to be wondering if you’ve added enough butter. I use 5 egg whites, one cup of butter and one cup of sugar. I really like it with less butter than most recipes and a side benefit to this is it’s less expensive. My recipe looks a bit whiter but I do make my own butter for it so that may be a factor along with it just being less butter. I use a half gallon of organic heavy whipping cream from Costco to make butter, which is very inexpensive – not much more than buying butter, and infinitely better. It makes about 3 cups of butter and takes me about 15 minutes. On a side note I don’t use any powdered sugar in my SMBC and have never had any problems with stability. I don’t like the mouth feel of the uncooked cornstarch in it but most people don’t notice it.

    Reply

  11. I totally have a baking bucket list! Swiss meringue buttercream, though, is not on it – I make it all the time and now I just find it to be far superior to normal buttercream. It’s so fluffy and dreamy :D

    And these cupcakes, oh goodness, these are a caramel-ahloics dream (AKA me). Pinned!

    Reply

  15. I don’t understand the line in the recipe about placing half a cookie in each cupcake liner. (Line 2 of the instructions). Am I missing something here?

    Reply

  17. These cupcakes look divine! I am simply STUNNED at how you do it all- being an NYC first-time mama, maintaining this beautiful blog with gorgeous food photography and baking new recipes, let alone have anytime to yourself! Way to go Audra! Cheers!

    Reply

    • Aw thanks Kathryn. I have 2 sisters that come to help me out when I have big baking projects :) I don’t get much time for myself but that will change soon

      Reply

      • So glad you have two sisters in the city. I am actually friends with Natalie Hill and it seems like you have a wonderful community of women slaying life! Rock on!

        Reply

  19. Thank you for sharing these recipes. I made a batch of these yesterday and they were divine. I had never heard of Swiss Meringue Buttercream before but I’m so glad I tried the recipe. It has an amazing taste, texture and mouthfeel, it will be hard to go back to normal buttercream now. It was helpful to have the tutorial, to be honest when mine curdled I was sceptical that more butter was the answer but like magic it came together. The caramel sauce recipe with photo tutorial was also great and I’ll be sure to check out some of your other recipes to use up the leftover caramel sauce. Thankyou again!

    Reply

  21. Thank you for this recipe!! I made these for a baby shower yesterday for a mother-to-be who has been craving salted caramel desserts. Everyone was RAVING about them! People who don’t normally like cupcakes/caramel/denser cake were talking about how good they were! My aunt actually said they were the best cupcakes she ever had. Trust me…they are worth the effort! Also, side note, I thought I completely ruined the frosting because it became so clumpy when i added the butter… but I realized the butter was just too cold, so I warmed it up a little and then kept mixing it and it was perfect :)

    Reply

    • I just keep my piping bag straight up and down and pipe straight down- does that make sense? I don’t swirl the frosting in a circle- I just let it come straight down.

      Reply

  25. This was really disappointing. The cupcakes were extremely dense (almost to the point of being unpleasant for a cupcake) and they tasted purely like flour.

    Reply

  26. I’m with Lexi…I don’t know what I did wrong but mine turned out dense as well. I’m thinking I didn’t use enough salt to react wit the baking powder I’m very conservative when it comes to salt as almost everything is ruined when using too much.. The batter smelled like waffle mix. I spent a lot of time making these for a bake sale that I now have to toss and don’t have time to make more.

    Reply

    • I’m so sorry they didn’t turn out right. I’ve made this recipe several times… I don’t think it’s the salt though. My guess would be over-mixing? That can lead to dense texture. I wish I could have known what went wrong!

      Reply

  27. I had the same thing as Lexi and Audra. Really dense dry cupcakes. I am not new to baking. I’ve been doing it for 30 yrs. I am going to try again this weekend. Maybe I over beat the batter. I will let you know.

    Reply

  28. Wow :) I made this amazing cupcakes by following the recipe for the cupcakes and the Swiss Meringue Buttercream. It was delicious and all my coworkers loved them too!!!

    The only thing I changed in the recipe for the cupcakes is the buttermilk. I replaced it with an alternative 1/2 cup of milk and 1/2 teaspoon of white vinegar. The cupcakes were moist and well baked. First time making the Swiss Meringue Buttercream and the video helped so much! It took more than 10 minutes for the butter to blend with the white egg yokes. Don’t desperate. It may take more time than expected. You will need to be patient and mixed them with a spatula to facilitate the processus.

    Thanks for the recipe Audra <3

    Reply

  29. These were SOOO good and relatively easy to make–at least easier than I was anticipating. My cupcakes were a little dry. I am at a high altitude, could that be why? What could I do to fix that, I only baked for 15 mins but used convection? Thanks for the recipe, it was such a HUGE hit!! My hubby and friends were delighted with the textures and flavors!

    Reply

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