It's become a bit of a tradition at my office for me to bring in cupcakes on anyone's birthday. Brandon's is today, so when he approached me about cupcakes I was more than happy to oblige. We brain stormed and came up with this compass:

Things That Are Good:
chocolate
mint
caramel
vanilla

Things That Are Bad:
nuts
seafood
fruit

This led me to the really interesting idea of a seafood cupcake. I've actually got quite a few brilliant ideas for this, but it'll have to wait until later. It appears that Brandon and I have very similar tastes in baked goods, so I decided to make two batches of mini-cakes.

1) Mint mocha cupcakes

Rich Chocolate Cupcakes Filled with Chocolate-Mint Ganache with Topped with Mint Buttercream by Chockylit

I went by the book with this one for the most part. The only major changes were the use of Godiva's espresso dark chocolate and the addition of instant coffee into the cupcake batter to make chocolate-espresso cupcakes, and the use of cream cheese instead of butter in the frosting. Try as I might, I just hate homemade buttercream and working with it makes me want to gag.



These were very good. The only thing that was really wrong was that I used 1 bar of 100% cacoa chocolate and 1 bar of semi-sweet. The ganache was pretty bitter because of this. It was still delicious for people who like the taste of real chocolate, but a bit intense for some others (notably kids). It was all part of my secret plan not to have to share, anyway.


2) Chococarmel

Chocolate-espresso cupcakes with Heath Bar/dulce de leche filling and salted buttercream frosting

The cupcake is Chockylit's classic chocolate recipe, again with the addition of about 2 T instant coffee.



To add a filling to the cupcake after baking, use a serrated knife to cut all around the top of the cupcake with the intent to pull out a conical piece. Cut the tip off the top and then replace after you're done filling. The filling is a variant on the "Better Than Sex" cake concept. First, I roughly chopped Heath Bars and filled the centers.



I then heated condensed milk with some left over salted caramel (see below) and then poured the hot mixture over the Heath crumbles. You can also mix caramel ice cream topping with the condensed milk. I usually use a 1:1 ratio for this, but I didn't have very much leftover caramel.



The frosting is an adaptation of this Salted Caramel Frosting and Tartlette's too-die-for salted caramel recipe. I am obsessed with this caramel and had planned to use it as a filling when I hit Cupcake Bakeshop to get the cupcake recipe and 'lo and behold the latest recipe had caramel frosting! I wouldn't have been brave enough to try this on my own, but I was brave enough to make some alterations. I cut out one stick of butter and only used a box (16oz) of powdered sugar. It sets up hard in the fridge, and the lower sugar content allowed the caramel flavor to come through strongly.



The cupcakes were a hit at work. I'm usually very critical of my work and rarely eat more than a bite, but I can't get enough of the Chococarmel! I'm not sure what I'm going to have to try in order to beat these.

Labels: baking, caramel, carmel, chocolate, cupcakes, mint, yummy