Salted Caramel Cupcakes

Salted Carmel Cupcakes

I don't bake. I try. But I don't do it often. So, you could imagine my shock when my husband asked for "Salted Caramel Cupcakes" for his birthday. It was a challenge and I was willing to take it! First off... there is no way that this non-baker was going to start from scratch (there are perfectly good box mixes in the store that are just waiting to be used).  Anyway... these cupcakes turned out AWESOME and I am so excited to share the how-to with you all!

I started with a basic cake mix. Why reinvent the wheel... (actually this helped limit the steps that I could possibly mess up). I added an extra egg because I read in some cooking blog that an extra egg makes them a bit more "cake" like. Sure.

I loaded all of the cake batter into a plastic bag and cut off a corner. This was very helpful in loading up all fo the cupcake tins! To store the bag of batter, I placed it in a bowl to hold the hole upright.

Once they cooled, it was time to get fancy. I filled a pastry bag full of caramel flavored topping. I "injected" it into each cupcake. For those of you that actually do bake, I am sure your are cringing at this step. I am sure there is a better way to fill a cupcake, but for someone who does not bake, my $1.99 pastry bag did the job!

Once they were all filled, I took to flavoring the frosting. I bought vanilla frosting, emptied it into my mixer, added some caramel sauce and mixed it up. It had a very mild carmel flavor but more importantly, I liked the color ;) (Or should the flavor be the more important part....??? Hm.)

I then took my nifty $1.99 pastry bag and filled it with frosting. I frosted all of the cupcakes, then placed a small piece of caramel on them (I cut the caramels into smaller pieces for the mini cupcakes), and put a pinch of sea salt on the top.

Wow. They were good.

Yep.  We will be making these again. :)