Triple Chocolate Cupcakes & Quadruple Caramel Cupcakes

Cupcake adventure continues!!

It was my brother and his fiance’s anniversary yesterday AND it is my dad’s birthday today! So I wanted to do something special for them and bake specialized cupcakes (even my dad is so far away, he was only able to enjoy the pictures).

I guess I went a little over board again…

For my brother’s fiance Ece, who loves chocolate:

Nutella Filled Triple Chocolate Cupcakes (with Magnolia Bakery Chocolate Butter Cream Frosting):

Since the red velvet recipes I used last time, stayed soft for a very long time (still had a soft texture after a week), I decided to go with that for the cake base.

As for the filling it if up to you how you want it, you can either but a little base mixture in to cupcake cups, put a small scoop of Nutella in the uncooked dough and add some more to cover Nutella.

If you’re using this method, don’t forget to cover up the Nutella with a little bit more cake mix.

Or, you can cook the base, when it is cooled, cut up a small portion, add again a small scoop of Nutella in and cover with the part you cut off. I found that the second version is better with Nutella staying gooey.

This is one of the Caramel Cupcakes with Butter Cream Frosting and Nutella filling.

Ingredients for the velvet base:

1. 1 large egg
2. 1 cup sugar
3. 2/3 cup buttermilk
4. 1/2 cup vegetable oil
5. 2 table spoon yogurt or coconut milk
6. Vanilla extract
7. 1+1/2 cups of flour
8. 3 tablespoon cocoa powder
9. Baking soda
10. Baking powder
11. Salt

Add the first 6 ingredients together and whisk. In a smaller bowl sift flour, cocoa, salt, baking soda and powder and add to the other mixture.

Finally you can add the food coloring. Be very careful how much you use and with the tools you touch with the coloring.

[Put the mixture in cupcake tray lined with papers. Bake for 20 mins at 180ºC in the preheated oven.

When you put a toothpick through the cakes and it comes out with small bits stuck to it, you’re just about ready. Leave them for another minute and take them out. If the toothpick comes out completely clean, they are overdone.] *This part is the same for all the cupcake base recipes. (Taken directly from my previous post on cupcakes.)

For frosting I used Magnolia Bakery’s Chocolate Butter Cream:

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 180gr unsalted (bitter) chocolate
• Vanilla extract
• 2 cups powdered sugar

First of all melt the chocolate and let it cool to room temperature without hardening.

In a mixer, or with a wooden spoon by hand, beat butter until creamy. Add the milk to the butter carefully. If combining them is a little hard little by little add the melted chocolate. Beat well and gradually add the sugar until you reach the creamy consistency you want for your cupcakes. I like to add a little bit more milk while adding the sugar so that it gives room for the sugar to melt but still taste sweet. If after adding milk your frosting is not peak-y enough add more powdered sugar.

Adapted from Magnolia Bakery Cookbook.

When everything is ready,

For my brother Tolga:

Quadruple Caramel Cupcakes with Homemade Caramel Sauce:

For this recipe, first I had to make a homemade caramel sauce, I a recipe I found exactly and you can too. It’s a little deliberate so I’ll just write down the ingredients and let you follow her instructions there.

Ingredients for Caramel Sauce:

• 1 cups sugar
• 6 tablespoons butter, cut into pieces
• 1/2 cup cream
• 1/2 tablespoon  sea salt

I followed the recipe at BrownEyedBaker.com, I don’t want to act like I know much about caramel making so, only thing I can say is visit her page and get the correct version. Make the sauce beforehand to give it enough time to cool down. We will use it for filling, in the frosting and decorating.

I’m pretty sure a perfect caramel sauce should be a little lighter color but this one worked too.

The thing is, since the caramel sauce is pretty intense I didn’t want to go overboard with the cake so I used a very light cake recipe.

Ingredients for the base:

• 2/3 cups cream
• 2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• Vanilla extract
• 1+1/2 cups sugar
• 1 cup butter, melted
• 1 cup water
• 2 cups flour

Mix the cream with baking soda, salt and eggs, whisk well. Add vanilla extract and the sugar, continue mixing.

In a small jug (or anything that is easy to pour from) mix melted butter with water.

Alternatively add butter mixture and sifted flour into the egg and cream mixture. Now butter mixture may not be homogeneous so  you may need to quickly mix every time you pour into the mixture.

You can add a little more flour or refrain from add all of the butter if the whole mixture is not how you want it. It it pretty up to you at this point.

[Put the mixture in cupcake tray lined with papers. Bake for 15 mins at 180ºC in the preheated oven.

When you put a toothpick through the cakes and it comes out with small bits stuck to it, you’re just about ready. Leave them for another minute and take them out. If the toothpick comes out completely clean, they are overdone.] *This part is the same for all the cupcake base recipes.

Adapted from: FoodNetwork.com

First batch ready to be frosted. This cake base recipe may be my ultimate recipe from now on, it was so fluffy and light.

Caramel Butter Cream 

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1+1/2 cups powdered sugar
• Vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon Caramel Sauce

This is a basic butter cream recipe but since we’re adding caramel sauce to it, it it better to add as little sugar as you can. So watch for that consistency.

Beat the butter until very soft, add the vanilla and 1 cup powdered sugar. Beat the mixture some more. Add the caramel sauce, as much as you like. Don’t overdo it. After the caramel, if your frosting is nor peak-y enough, add more sugar.

When the cooked base is cooled, you can either cut up a small portion off the cake fill manually and cover up or, you can fill a frosting bag  with caramel sauce with an injector tip. You can fill the cakes with the sauce as much as you want.

After frosting your cakes you can drizzle them with a little bit more caramel sauce and for a final touch, sprinkle some sea salt.

I personally don’t like too much caramel so for some of the cupcakes I turned them into double or triple caramel cupcakes.

Quadruple caramel in the middle and triple ones around.

Since these were special occasion cupcakes, I made some decorations with fondant. I bought them ready-made so the only thing is to be carefull when you’re preparing the decorations. I found this video in Jamie Oliver’s YouTube channel, instructed by cupcake maker Jemma Wilson

Fondant decoration I made for my dad, it says ‘Happy Birthday Daddy’ and his initial ‘Z’ in the other.

Anniversary decorations for my brother and his fiance, it was their 6th anniversary.

I also made some simple Butter Cream with a drop of red food coloring, turning them into soft pink bundles.

The caramel base with chocolate frosting cupcakes

I had these cute paper molds and made a few big cupcakes with them. However, they are not easy to take out from the papers.

They go out pretty fast! That’s the only bad thing about cupcakes!

These were so fun to make, this time I was more conscious about how to frost so I focused on the taste more and the caramel cake came out extraordinarily good. Enjoy!