Chocolate Salted Caramel Cupcakes with Swiss Meringue Buttercream

The best cupcakes you will have ever tasted, Part I.

(Not even exaggerating)

It was my friend Jiamin's birthday this weekend. So of course, me being me, I made cupcakes.

This is part one of a two part entry titled, "The Best Cupcakes You Will Have Ever Tasted." I went on a cupcake making rampage this weekend and tried my hand at two new cupcakes. Read on and stayed tuned to find out what goes into making the best cupcakes ever!

I was tired of the same old cupcakes and was searching for something new and exciting. I knew I wanted something unique that you can't get at your average bakery. Recently, Kevin took me to Cupcake Royale where I purchased a Chocolate Salted Caramel cupcake. Although the cupcake was too sweet, the flavor combination of chocolate and salted caramel was insanely delicious.

Thinking that this cupcake would be perfect for the occasion, I went in search (as I always do), of the perfect recipe. Hours of researching later, I came upon another blogger's site: Crispy Waffle. The thing that hooked me (and not the other dozen or so recipes that I had read and discarded), was the fact that she used an out-of-the-ordinary buttercream. She built upon a Swiss Meringue Buttercream base to make the salted caramel frosting. (Amazingly enough, the author of this blog comments on the same cupcake & cupcake store that I had previously mentioned... and her assessment is the same as mine!)

I digress: quite frankly, I dislike American Buttercream, which is the run-of-the-mill, super sweet frosting that you get on most cupcakes and cakes. It's a mixture of butter and powdered sugar. A lot of powdered sugar. It gives you the feeling that you're spooning sugar straight into your mouth. Also, if it sits out for too long, it dries out and gets crusty edges! Eww. I usually end up scraping off all the frosting. It's super rare for me to find a cake where I actually like the frosting.

I've known about this Swiss Meringue Buttercream for some time, and had been meaning to try it. But because it's such a pain to make (you'll see why later), I had been putting it off. But since it was Jiamin's birthday, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to finally try it out.

Step 1: The Cupcakes

On Crispy Waffle's blog, she makes these cupcakes with a vanilla cake. I, however, ever the chocolate fiend, opted for a chocolate cake. I always use this recipe from Williams Sonoma when making these.

It calls for semi sweet chocolate, chopped and melted. That's how you know it's gonna be a good cupcake! These cupcakes will turn out moist and fluffy if you make sure not to over mix. Stop mixing as soon as all the flour is incorporated, or you'll get a super dense and dry cupcake.

It's so important to bake these from scratch, however tempting that box of cake mix may be. There's just something different about home-made ones that give it the extra deliciousness that you can't ever get from boxed cake mix. Plus, the super high quality buttercream you're about to make deserves an equally fantastic cupcake. =)

Step 2: The Caramel

Oh boy, not even try to cover this one up: I failed at this twice before I finally got it right. lol. (Refer to Crispy Waffle's site for the recipe.) Caramel is basically sugar syrup boiled until it's amber. Simple, right? You'd think it would be. But for me, a first timer, it was definitely a challenge. I will try to meticulously document everything that went wrong so that you can learn from my mistakes. =)

So what you do is put sugar and water on the stove to dissolve. Then when it boils, put a lid on it for 2 minutes. Afterward, with the lid off, swirl the pan around until it turns amber. Ok so, my first problem was that instead of "swirling the pan," like indicated in the recipe, I stirred it with my spatula, which made it turn back into solid chunks of sugar! Seriously, swirl the pan when the woman tells you to swirl! And also, I was confused because I expected it to turn amber immediately. But no, it very slowly changed color over a 10 minute period. And all the while, you have to be patient and swirl.

When it's done, it will be a deep amber color (picture on the left). Pretty! On my second attempt, I was super excited because I got it to this stage. However, I made the mistake of pouring it into a pyrex bowl before adding the heavy whipping cream. This cooled it down significantly and didn't allow for incorporation of the cream. Basically what I had was chunks of cooled down caramel floating in cream. What you need to do is leave it in the pot itself and slowly pour in the cream while using an electronic mixer. This makes it so that you get everything incorporated before the caramel cools and sets (pictured on the right). Do it quickly and immediately after you take it off the heat.

One thing that I freaked out about: you might get the amber caramel mixture splashed on something...and the second it cools, it turns rock hard. You try to pry it off with your fingers and it won't budge. I thought I had ruined my pyrex! But don't panic like I did, because apparently it dissolves quite easily if you put it in water for like 5 minutes.

When your caramel is done, set it aside and start on your buttercream.

Step 3: Swiss Meringue Buttercream

Ok so, here's the painful part. For American buttercreams, you put powdered sugar and butter into a bowl, whip it up and you're good to go. But it's also disgusting. lol. This Swiss Buttercream might be a pain, but it's totally worth it. You gotta try making it at least once in your life to see for yourself just how delicious it is. (Refer to Crispy Waffle's site for the recipe.)

Start by combining egg whites, cream of tartar and sugar into your stainless steel stand mixer bowl. (I need to mention that on Crispy Waffle's site, she says to also add water to this, but on the ingredients list, it doesn't call for water. Must be a typo. I ignored it, didn't add any water, and it still turned out great). Submerge your bowl in simmering water and mix with a hand held mixer until the temperature on your candy thermometer reaches 140 degrees.

If you don't have a thermometer, just watch it carefully. It should look foamy when it reaches the right temp- kinda like the foam on a latte. (I didn't have one either, but I went out and bought one for $9, so they're not a super expensive investment.)

After it reaches the proper temperature, transfer it to your stand mixer and beat it on medium speed (I used 6), for about 5 minutes, until stiff & glossy peaks form.

Your stiff peaks should look like this when ready.

Scoop 2/3 of it out into a separate bowl. It should be puffy like marshmallows and be able to hold its form.

Take turns spooning in the butter and extra meringue. It will look scary and curdled at the beginning, but don't worry. It'll smooth out after 5 minutes or so of whipping.

It will look like this when done! Super silky and creamy!

Now add in the caramel from earlier. It will have darkened in color and be more viscous. Mix until well combined.

Step 4: Frost The Cupcakes!

I recently got a giant, jumbo-sized icing tip that I was dying to try out!

It worked really well. The best icing tip I've had thus far. It gave me these beautiful soft serve type swirls!

When you're done frosting, line them up...

...and add a sprinkle of sea salt!

Jiamin later told me that these were the best cupcakes she's ever tasted, which gave me the idea for this post. =) Truthfully, they really were. In fact, they were the best anyone had tasted, out of all who tried them. I think the secret is in the Swiss Meringue frosting. It was so silky and creamy, and subtly sweet. It wasn't over powering, and it didn't mask the flavor of the cake...it complemented perfectly. It was light, yet flavorful on the palate.

So perfect.

This is the only buttercream I will ever use for my cupcakes from here on out. It seriously takes your cupcakes to a whole new level. It tastes fancy and gourmet. I doubt many people have tasted a cupcake like this before. And dare I say, it was 10 times better than the one I had at Cupcake Royal. This was the first time in my adult life where I felt compelled to spoon frosting out of the bowl and into my mouth. I might have consumed a spoonful...or ten.

Excited about my new buttercream discovery, I set out to make a different variety to see if it would be just as good...stayed tuned for "The best cupcakes you will have ever tasted, Part II."



Note: for best results, serve immediately after frosting. If they've been in the fridge, have them sit at room temp for 20-30 minutes before serving. It needs to have enough time for the butter in the frosting to soften.


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