Week 11 – Happy World Baking Day!

Salted Caramel Cupcakes

As I said in my previous post, I had this week off, so intended on trying something a little more complex.  I also found out earlier in the week that today, Sunday 19^th May, is World Baking Day!  So I thought that despite having the whole week to bake, I would wait until today, to make my endeavour more global, in keeping with the fact this blog is on the World Wide Web.  The official World Baking Day activity was to pick something from the website according to your baking ability, however nothing from any of the abilities really screamed out ‘bake me!’ so I thought I’d stick to the book, literally.  But then I had the dilemma of what to cook.  As I was going to be baking today, and I already had plans for earlier, the recipe could no longer be too complex, so I decided to go for Salted Caramel cupcakes.  This week has been quite a caramel filled week to be honest – while in London on Wednesday my sister and I called into Paul A. Young chocolate shop in Soho, and he makes amazing salted caramel chocolates.  We then had Salted Caramel Carte d’Or ice cream on Friday, and today in Starbucks I tried the new Triple Caramel Frappuccino (in stores tomorrow I think).  That drink has put me on a sugar high all day!  So really it was a natural decision.

The bake

The cupcake sponge itself is basically a chocolate cupcake, and the salted caramel part comes from the filling and the frosting.  For the cupcake bake, I am following the ingredients to the letter!  Except for using skimmed milk instead of whole milk.  Often with cake/sponge recipes in the Hummingbird cookbooks, you cream the butter and sugar together first, then add the dry ingredients, but in this instance you added all the cupcake ingredients, minus the milk and eggs, into a bowl and mixed until they resembled crumbs:

 

You then mixed milk and eggs in a jug, and gradually added it to the bowl, until you had the cupcake mixture.  And that’s it!  Definitely not complex, sorry guys!  I decided to use muffin cases rather than my usual small cupcake cases, and as a result the batter filled the 12 cases exactly.  However, turns out I overfilled – can you see how the cakes have spilled over the sides!  So although it did mean I didn’t have to do another batch, next time I would fill the cases halfway rather than two-thirds/three-quarters of the way.  So that they would look more uniform once I’d put the frosting on them, I cut off any edges that went beyond the standard cupcake shape, and put them to one side (I hate waste!).

Once the cakes have cooled completely, you add the first caramel element to the cupcake.  I’ll say now that the recipe asks for dulce de leche, or caramel sauce.  My local large supermarket didn’t have what I was looking for (turns out every little doesn’t always help), but thankfully my mother had an opened jar of caramel sauce that she’d picked up from Aldi once.  Aldi no longer had the sauce in question.  I have definitely seen dulce de leche in a supermarket before, so it’s probably worth just keeping an eye out!  Anyway, to add the sauce to the cake, you employ the same method as I used when adding the orange marmalade to my Jaffa Cake cupcakes.  That is, to cut a circle in the cupcake with a sharp knife, take that bit out, fill the gap halfway with caramel sauce, then replace the bit of cake in the hole.  The cake does need to be level, so I tend to cut half of the sponge bit off.  I added that to my pile of cupcake edges from earlier.  The trick with putting the cake bit back in is to make sure you’re putting it back in the same way it came out, so the cake looks like it hasn’t been touched.  As you then add frosting it doesn’t matter aesthetic-wise, but it does make a level cupcake!

 

Then it’s time for frosting.  As noted in previous blogs, Hummingbird recipes tend to require a lot of icing sugar (670 grams for this one!) so as usual I halved the quantities.  It’s a standard buttercream, so you add icing sugar, softened butter and milk, then add some dulce de leche, and some sea salt!  This is where the salt comes in.  The recipe says ‘a pinch’, but maybe add a little bit at a time, and taste.  I put my definition of a pinch in, but found I couldn’t taste any salt at all, and although I know it should be a subtle complement to the caramel, it’s no good not being able to taste it at all!  So I added a little bit more.  Once they’ve all been frosted, swirl a bit more caramel sauce on top, and a small sprinkling of the sea salt.

Voilà!  Don’t they look great?  I’m not the best when it comes to decorating the cakes, and need to hone my palette knife technique, however by adding the swirl of caramel on top it gives them quite a sophisticated look!  Unfortunately I haven’t had a chance to taste one yet – I’m still on a sugar high, and it’s almost 11pm so if I have one now I’ll never get to sleep… However, I have a bit of a treat in store for you – as I said I hate waste, and have enough sponge offcuts and excess frosting to attempt cake pops!  So once I’ve made those I’ll share my method/results with you, and by then I will have definitely tasted a cupcake.  Ooh so much suspense!  So until then, happy baking!