Salted Caramel Cupcakes

• You will want to make 1 batch of your favorite chocolate cupcakes (24 cupcakes in total). I recommend my homemade chocolate cupcakes! Make sure they are cooled completely before filling and frosting!
• Make 1 batch of my stabilized whipped cream frosting. Depending on how you frost the cupcakes you may need a second batch.

To make the salted caramel sauce:

• In a heavy bottomed sauce pan/pot, add your sugar. Over medium heat melt the sugar stirring constantly. As the sugar melts it will start to clump before it gets smooth. This is normal.
• Once it’s melted, continue stirring, and allow it to become an amber color and start to have a nutty smell. Be careful not to let it go past this stage or else it will burn and no one wants that!
• Once it is the right color, add in the butter and whisk together. Whisking helps the butter not separate, or if it does separate from the sugar it will help it reincorporate. Adding the butter will cause the sugar to get really foamy and rise a bit. That’s good! Keep stirring until the butter is fully mixed in.
• Once the butter is mixed in, slowly pour in the heavy cream, whisking as you pour. The mixture will become slightly foamy again and that’s fine. As it mixes in completely it will smooth out.
• Stir in your salt, and if cool enough do a little taste test. If it isn’t salty enough for your liking add more in in 1 teaspoon increments until it is as salty as you want it.
• Pour your salted caramel sauce into a glass container and allow it to cool. It will thicken up really nicely once fully cooled. If you need it to thicken fast, stick it in your freezer for 20-30 minutes.
• Keep unused caramel sauce in your refrigerator up to 2 weeks!

How to fill cupcakes with the salted caramel:

• Using your filling tip, which you can find at Walmart or any craft store in the cake decorating isle, place into a decorating bag (make sure to cut off the little end of the bag so the tip can go through the end), and fill with your cooled salted caramel sauce. If the caramel sauce isn’t cooled/thick enough it will run right out the tip and make a huge mess and we don’t want that!
• Insert the filling tip into a cupcake and squeeze the caramel sauce into the cupcake. The cupcake will plump slightly when it is full. You can also feel the cupcake swell. Also, if you put too much caramel into the cupcake it will ooze out the sides and be messy- but still delicious. When using the filling tip you don’t need to scoop out any of the cupcake.
• Do this to all the cupcakes. If you don’t have a filling tip, scoop out some of the inside of the cupcakes and pour caramel into the hole, similar to what I do for my surprise cupcakes.

How to frost and decorate your salted caramel cupcakes:

• Using your second decorating bag insert the Wilton 1M tip. You can find this tip in any cake decorating isle at a grocery or craft store.. Fill this bag with your easy whipped cream frosting and pipe onto the cupcakes. I like to start at the center of the cupcakes and move in a clockwise pattern out to the edges of the cupcake and then layer up, while still piping on the frosting in a clockwise motion. Depending on how big you make your frosting swirls you may need a second batch of frosting.
• Melt your chocolate chips in the microwave, for 30 seconds, stir, and then repeat until melted. The using a spoon drizzle the chocolate over the cupcakes.
• Drizzle additional caramel over the cupcakes as well!
• Enjoy!
• Store these cupcakes in the refrigerator until ready to be served.