Cupcakes! Again! ...this time it's Salted Caramel Mocha cupcakes!

Little bites of heaven in all different flavors and styles...the overly sweet & decadent doesn't have to be the only way to rock a cupcake! =)

Some of the best cupcakes I've ever made have been savory cupcakes including bacon maple cupcakes (which I will try my hand again at on Saturday for my sweet sister-in-law and family) and my newest creation, salted caramel mocha cupcakes with homemade caramel...which by the way is the sweetest, yummiest, gummiest, ooey gooeyness ever :) I saw one post recently about buffalo wing cupcakes. I think that may be a bad idea in reality, so I'm leaving that one alone for now. Dried hot wing with overly sweet icing underneath...ummm, I think I'll leave my wings at Buffalo Wild Wings for date night with the hubby for now. ;)

I fell in love with the Salted Caramel Mocha drink at Starbucks and decided to test my baking skills with these basic ingredients. How hard can it be, right??? ...So as I read the basic instructions of a recipe that I found online, I assumed like many other things in my past that making homemade caramel sauce was truly just as easy watching how they make it on TV. All you have to do is heat up a little sugar and a few seconds later you have some amazing sauce to drizzle over everything.

I quickly realized as I started cooking that this was going to be a LITTLE more complicated than originally thought. My sugar started burning so I took it off the heat and put it in a bowl...and it started hardening on EVERYTHING! My spatula, my bowl, my fingers were all hardening like super glue. So I dumped in heavy whipping cream which bubbled up and scared the heck out of me. So I figured there may just be just a little bit more to the story. So I did as my cooking-smart hubby does and youtube'd how to make caramel sauce and found this lady who apparently has her own cooking youtube.com thing going on. She's got tons of great posts with different recipes to try out. So fun: http://www.youtube.com/user/LauraVitalesKitchen. Her caramel sauce post was very helpful for timing and color techniques. Ok, so maybe Paul was right just this once ;)

All I could think while I was watching it though...is 1) that looks super easy, why couldn't I do that ;) & 2) Paul should do this, he'd be great!

So here goes...

Salted Caramel Mocha Cupcakes!!!

Caramel Recipe Ingredients:

1/2 cup water

1 cup sugar

3/4 heavy whipping cream (or 3/4 cup milk & 1/3 cup butter as I used for a substitute)

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 tbsp butter 

Heat sugar and water over medium high heat until the sauce turns a nice deep amber color. Make sure you use a deep pan to avoid splashing caramel on your skin..ouch!

Once the caramel turns the nice amber color you want...as seen below...remove from heat and add the heavy whipping cream (or substitute). BE CAREFUL during this part. The heat of the caramel and the introduction of the cold liquid causes it to foam and bubble up...it's a little scary if you're not prepared for it. 

Return to heat and add the butter. Let the butter melt and continue to cook for a few minutes. Add salt if you want, although I held off on the salt and the vanilla from the original recipe because I was planning on garnishing the cupcakes with salt and didn't want too much of a good thing.

Additional cupcake ingredients:

Any basic chocolate cupcake recipe

Chocolate frosting

Vanilla frosting

Cold-pressed coffee

Kosher Salt

So the cupcakes weren't anything fancy this time, just a simple chocolate cake recipe with cold-pressed coffee instead of the regular water equivalent. Shhhh...I used duncan hines cake-mix for this one. I wanted the star of the cupcakes to be the caramel :)

After the cupcakes and caramel are cooled, you scoop out the center of the cupcake...using a round teaspoon measurer and replace the center with the gooey caramel sauce. Place the very top of the scooped out cupcake piece back on top of the cupcake to cover the caramel for frosting. 

I used some yummy chocolate & coffee flavored vanilla icing mixed together (piped out of a ziplock baggie of course).

Now for the FUN part...drizzling the cupcakes with MORE caramel sauce and sprinkling with kosher salt.  

Only a few minutes later, and every dish in the house used, you have this fabulous creation...I can't wait to share them with my work buddies =)  

I hope they like them!

I've realized slowly that my passion for creating yummy treats and/or designing something fun is really quite special to me. I'm always looking for a way to create something interesting and new. Paul and I are constantly thinking of different ways to add creativity and pisaz to our dinner parties, a true passion for both of us. It's a fairly new passion for me and something that I hope to continue to explore often! :)  

This one is a little bitter sweet since it's for a going-away-gesture for one of my good friends at work Joanna...she's going back to school and leaving us @ Universal :(