Description
Salted caramel paired with salt and a sweet frosting makes for a delicious combination! Moist cupcakes make this irresistible!
Ingredients
Scale
For the Cupcakes:
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 and 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter (you can use salted, just omit the salt above)
- 1 tbsp vanilla
- 3 egg whites
- 3/4 cup milk
- 1/8 cup oil
Caramel:
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 3 tbsp butter
- 1/4 cup heavy cream
- 1/2 tsp sea salt (optional)
Buttercream Frosting:
- 1 cup unsalted butter - softened
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1/4 cup caramel sauce (room temp)
Instructions
For the Cupcakes
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Add all the dry ingredients to the bowl of a stand mixer and mix with a paddle.
- In a separate bowl, combine wet ingredients and set aside.
- Turn on mixer, and slowly add little chunks of butter in at a time. Continue to mix until there are no chunks left and the mixture becomes crumbly.
- On low speed, add about 1/3 of the wet ingredients to the bowl. Mix until a paste forms.
- Add 1/2 of the remaining wet ingredients and beat on medium speed for 4 minutes.
- Add remaining wet ingredients and mix for 5 minutes.
Caramel
- Place the sugar in a saucepan and heat on medium-high heat until completely melted. The sugar will clump up (photo below) and look like it will not melt, but keep stirring. 🙂
Buttercream:
- Mix on high until the butter is light and fluffy, about 2 minutes or so.
- Add the vanilla, then on low speed add the powdered sugar. Be sure to slow down the speed, or there will be powdered sugar everywhere.. I know.. I've done it MULTIPLE times..
- Mix well until light and fluffy, then add in your room temperature caramel! Mix until combined.
