renewing my mind: sea salt caramel cupcakes

yup you read that right. and yup they are absolutely fantastically delicious. as in: you must make them immediately.

here's the deal. i love cupcakes. it started just as i love cake, but since cupcakes are mini cakes, they tend to be a lot more fun than cake. i also love salted caramels. fran's, a local candy maker, introduced me to salted caramels. it was immediate love at first bite. purple, a local restaurant, has the best salted caramels i've ever had. they're made in house and on the dessert menu. worth a trip JUST for those. forget the wonderful creations on their menu - this is the best.

so when my mom sent me an email from epicurious.com with a recipe for sea salted caramel cupcakes i about fell over. here is my exact response: "oh my good lord i can not WAIT to make these!!!!!". and i didn't wait very long. i had to bring snacks to bible study this morning, so i thought - what a perfect opportunity! made sure i had all my ingredients and set out yesterday afternoon. although a bit labor intensive, they weren't difficult by any means. here is the recipe and my suggestions for improvements :).

SEA SALTED CARAMEL CUPCAKES

Cupcakes
2 C. flour
1 C cocoa powder
2 C granulated sugar
1 ½ tsp baking powder
1 ½ tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1 stick melted butter
2/3 c melted chocolate
2 tsp vanilla
1 C sour cream

Chardonnay Caramel Sauce
1 C sugar
1 stick butter
½ C heavy whipping cream
1/4 C oak vatted Chardonnay

Butter Cream
2 stick butter
4 C powdered sugar
1 Tbsp meringue powder
1 C solid vegetable shortening
5-7 Tbsp milk, warmed

CupCakes

Preheat oven at 350. Line Muffin Tins with Cupcake Liners. Sift together Flour, Cocoa Powder, Baking Soda, Baking Powder and Salt. Beat eggs and sugar. Add Milk, Butter, Chocolate, Vanilla and Sour Cream. Add Dry ingredients. Beat at medium for 2-3 minutes. Pour Batter 2/3 full in muffin tins. Cook for 8-12 minutes until tootpick comes out clean.

Caramel Sauce
Heat sugar and on medium high in heavy 2 quart saucepan and stir. When the sugar starts to boil (and all the sugar is melted) add butter to pan and whisk until melted. Remove pan from heat and let cool about 5 seconds. Whisk in cream. (It will foam and that’s good) Whisk until smooth. Add Chardonnay while hot and whisk together. Remove from pan into a glass jar to store. Can be premade. (i bolded medium high b/c i put it on high heat and had some serious melted sugar flying all over my kitchen)

Butter Cream

Cream Butter and Shortening with paddle attachment on medium until fluffy. Add Confectioner’s Sugar. (Either cover mixer with a damp towel or add in ¼ c increments to keep it from flying out of the bowl - this is brilliant. totally do it.) Add Meringue Powder and Milk. Beat on high about 4 minutes

Assembly

Fill Cupcake with caramel sauce. Leave ¼ C Caramel Sauce. Stripe pastry bag with caramel sauce then fill ½ way with butter cream. Make swirl of butter cream and caramel to ice each cupcake. Sprinkle Fleur de Sel over top of each cupcake. Just a little so that each bite is sweet, dark and salty. YUM!

okay there is the recipe, and here are my notes:

1) you can half the entire recipe. the creator of the recipe says it makes 12 cupcakes...they must have been the size of my head because i easily made 24 cupcakes, some that were too big, and still had batter left over. just a heads up.

2) make the caramel sauce first. and stick it in the fridge; it will still pour just fine after being in there and won't be completely absorbed by the cake when you fill the cupcakes (which is how mine turned out - still yummy but not what i was going for).

3) the cake is pretty fine (read: crumbles easily) and the less you handle the cake the better. follow the instructions and use a bag for the frosting (i used a ziploc - forget spending more money!)

4) to fill the cupcakes with the caramel do this: take a small but sharp knife (paring is great) and cut a circle a little smaller than a quarter on the top of the cupcake; remove top and set aside. take a 1/4 tsp and scoop out a little cake from your hole. fill with caramel; replace top. then frost.