Chocolate Caramel Lovers Cupcakes

It really was good!

When I was delivering the blue raspberry lemonade cupcakes to Bobby one night he told me that his girlfriend really wanted some of my cupcakes.  First I'm thinking 'What?  You didn't save her any!' then I'm thinking, and said, "Just tell me what she wants."  This girl had earned some serious points with me (I haven't met her yet) when she told Bobby to get off the phone and talk to me and I was in a generous mood.  Plus it meant getting to make more cupcakes!

Later he comes back and says, "Chocolate."  Apparently she loves chocolate.  Hmm, now that's a female after my own heart. 

Megan and her husband have been begging for Reece's Pieces inspired cupcakes.  Chocolate and Peanut butter.  It didn't sit right with me but the only directive I had was 'chocolate'.  Does anybody else realize the many ways that you can make chocolate creative?  Chocolate cherry (done), chocolate raspberry (done), chocolate and peanut butter (done in an icing).  I wanted something new and creative. 

"Does she like caramel?"
"It's her second favorite."
"Perfect."

These were going to be good.  These were going to be amazing.  These were going to use so many techniques I had wanted to try and never gotten the chance to use.  There was my cupcake corer.  Then the double broiler.  However, I needed to get my ingredients first.  :)

Chocolate Caramel Lovers Cupcakes

Ingredients:


1 box of chocolate cake mix (hello, once again making things easy, are you paying attention Chas and Megan?)
3 eggs
cooking oil
water
1 jar of caramel sauce (found in the ice cream toppings section)
1 two pound bag of powdered sugar
1 cup shortening
vanilla extract
cocoa powder
1 bag of chocolate chips (bitter sweet, not milk chocolate.  The caramel and powered sugar would make things sweet enough)

I also still had some leftover chocolate icing from Jackie's youngest sister's birthday party (I think I'm mentioning almost everybody today!).

Directions for the cake: 


1. Follow the recipe on the box.  Need I say more.  Do I have to keep saying this?  I did not add anything else.  No juice, no flavors.  Just made the cake.  And if I had made it from scratch I'm not revealing that recipe. Make the cupcakes as usual. 
2. Remove and cool.  


Directions for icing:  


1. Again, I think I have posted this recipe somewhere.  Check the Birthday Cupcakes blog post.

 The only change I made was I did a half a batch and threw in the left over, chilled icing.  It's perfectly safe.  The shortening insures that. 


Directions for using a double broiler:


Now calm down.  There is no reason to panic.  I repeat, Do Not Panic.  This is easy.  This is far easier than trying to melt something in the microwave and burning it.  (What, does nobody else watch Food Network?  Didn't anybody else see that episode of The Next Food Network Star?  Just me?  Geez.)


I'll break this down for you, dear reader. 


1. Get out a sauce pan and a glass bowl.  Bowl must be able to set in the sauce pan without touching the bottom of the pan.
2. Put some water in the sauce pan.  Put the bowl on top of the sauce pan.  Does the water touch the bowl?  Pour some out. 
3. Turn the stove on.  Let's go with medium to medium high. 
4. Be prepared to not leave this. Make sure that your ingredients are in place. (Caramel and chocolate chips.)  Have a spatula ready.  Or a big spoon.  You need to be able to scrape the sides. 
5. Pour in chocolate and the caramel (not all, some, caramel does expand you know).  A little bit of milk.  
6. Mix well until melted.  Taste.  If you want more caramel, add it.  Mix.

The good thing is the mixture of the milk and the caramel will keep the chocolate from hardening.

cupcake corer

Decorating the cupcakes:

Now, those pretty little cupcakes that are now cool on the counter?  Take out a cupcake corer.  It looks like this.

Insert the corer into the cupcake, twist, and remove.  Some cake will come out with the corer.  Do this to all of the cupcakes.

The "holes"

Use whatever you like to fill the cupcakes with the chocolate caramel mixture.  I did use my handy pampered chef decorator with filler tip (Still loving it, Aisha!).  By the way, some cookie presses come with icing tips and attachments.  

The rest of the chocolate caramel mixture I dumped into the icing, giving it some of that flavor.  I added some more powdered sugar to stiffen the icing back up.  I did not want another running icing incident. 

before

after

 Decorate with the icing. 

You could also save some of the melted mixture out and drizzle over the cupcakes.  I did not. 

Also, Bobby's girlfriend got my number from him to personally thank me for the cupcakes.  If the successful attempts at new techniques did not make my day, that sure did. 

Served with Milk