I am not embarrassed to admit I am new to the whole 'salty and sweet' thang. I never understood those people. Salty is great and sweet is great...make up your mind!
But then I tried Chicago style popcorn which is both cheese AND caramel. WHOA. No idea why the combination works but it does...
This had me questioning my whole paradigm. What else was I wrong about? Is it possible? Salty and sweet...is...good?
No.
It's great! And Salted Caramel is a NO BRAINER. I have been wanting to do something salted caramel for a long time. So for the cupcake we have a dark fudge cupcake with my Caramel Cream Frosting drizzled with caramel sauce and fleur de sel (French Sea Salt). The frosting is the most smooth and creamy frosting I have ever made. It's such a lovely flavour to pair with the richness of the chocolate!
Et Voila.
Magnifique !
These could totally work as a Starbucks themed cupcake too. Just stick a little green straw in there and boom! Cupcake Frappucino!
I also made these for Eid -- yes, It was a treat filled weekend! And they are such a beautifully presented little treat. I decorated them with moons and stars made out of white chocolate. Those were admittedly kind of ugly but that's okay because they were DELICIOUS!
Disclaimer: Do you see that weirdness underneath my beautiful frosting? The first batch I made....I used light cream cheese and too much caramel and it seeped EVERYWHERE. It made a huge mess and wrecked my cupcakes. But I didn't want to throw them out so I scraped it off and went to the grocery store to buy all new ingredients for another batch.
Huge pain? Yes. But worth it for this (And yes this one has the messy frosting underneath, too! Grrrrr) :
So grab a box of chocolate cake mix or your favourite chocolate cupcake recipe, cheat with store-bought caramel or a home made version and let's make frosting!