Salted triple caramel cupcakes

The ultimate salted caramel experience.

Yep, cupcakes again.

Before I start, I must give credit for the majority of this recipe to Sally's Baking Addiction. Her recipe is here. 

For my cakes, I used my standard vanilla cake mix, but substituted the caster sugar that I normally use for dark brown sugar. 

Caramel cakes!

I followed the icing recipe pretty much exactly, except that I added some vanilla extract and was a bit more liberal with the butter and cream than I was with the sugar. 

I was, in fact, so liberal with the butter that for a while there the icing was not technically icing. Turns out there is such a thing as too much butter. After some extra cream and icing sugar were added to a reheated mixture, it came good. Crisis was averted. 

Technically this isn't actually icing - it's just caramel.

Because the icing was so thick and buttery, I had trouble squeezing it through a piping nozzle. Every time I tried, I had a blowout. So I iced these with a piping bag only. You can do this by cutting off the tip and using it as you would normally.

Once they were iced, I sprinkled some finely ground sea salt on top, and added a chewy caramel lolly. 

Werther's Original Caramel Chews as cake toppers, chopped in half, salted and slightly melted

Some tips I thought of today while baking: 

• Always cook cupcakes with the liners sitting in a muffin tray. This ensures that they come out of the oven in a nice shape, and don't spill over the edges, etc. 
• When filling your cupcake cases, it is easiest to do so with a jug. I always end up making a huge mess if I try and use a spoon. Use a spatula to guide the mixture into the cases. 
• If you do spill any around the inside edge of the cases, use a fork to gently push the excess mixture down into the case. Remember - when the cakes rise, they're likely to cover up any mistakes anyway. 

That's all. Now stop salivating and start baking!

You know you want one.