I have a customer who has requested caramel frosting on cupcakes. She drives an hour away to go to a posh bakery to get cupcakes with caramel frosting. She has recently become a HUGE fan of my cupcakes (yay me!!! ) and has made this request. I have to top those cupcakes!! I have a caramel frosting recipe and thought about an apple cupcake or even a caramel pecan cupcake with it. What are your thoughts???? Do you have any other suggestions? Recipes?

TIA,
Jennifer

I don't know if the stores near you sell this product, but in the Latin American foods sections here, they sell a product called Nestle Dulce de Leche, which is a cooked-down version of sweetened, condensed milk. I just stir it to soften it, then beat it into my regular icing. I like it because the caramel flavor isn't very strong, so it doesn't mask the flavor of the cupcake.

There's a couple of ways to make the dulce de leche at home. You can boil the unopened can of sweetened condensed milk or empty it into a pyrex bowl and cook it in the microwave. You can find the instructions online. Personally, I would never try the boiling method, as I fear the can might explode. But there are quite a few members here who have done this successfully.

Theresa

i like the apple idea. But caramel and chocolate is my absolute favorite flavor combo, so i vote chocolate

Love the idea of apple cupcake especially for the fall. Another flavor that is trendy right now is a chocolate cupcake, caramel frosting lightly sprinkled with sea salt - sold at high end shops here, make a few samples and see what you think.

Oops! Sorry, I got so involved in yapping about my icing that I forgot to mention the cupcake.

I make a turtle cupcake by using a milk chocolate cake with chopped toasted pecans in the batter, then topping the frosting with more pecans.

Theresa

Y'all are making me hungry!

Appletini cupcake made with apple sour pucker liquor.

butter pecan cake

or chocolate espresso cake filled with whipped cream ...daaaaaaaaaaaaaayum that is the highlight of any mall trip or girls' day out...caramel macchiato or mocha latte...

I vote a rich chocolate cupcake with a cream cheese frosting in the center, topped off with caramel frosting and chopped pecans.

Chocolate espresso filled with ganache....YUM!!!!!

Jodief, a c/cer has a delicious carmel filling recipe on this site. I made it the other week. I made chocolate layers.Torted them.Spread the carmel filling on each layer.Then i added the carmel to a batch of brown sugar swiss meringue b/c. Put that on top of the carmel filling.Then i iced it in chocolate expresso swiss meringue b/c/ . It was wonderful. You could do cup cakes the same . hth

KristiDi, the recipe was posted earlier on CC, but I can'f find it to give credit to the original poster, but here goes:
Make a white cake mix as directed but sub 1/3 c. vodka, 1/3 c. apple pucker and the remainder 7up for the amount of water it calls for
on the box. Top with caramel frosting. I hope you have some vodka in your cabinet too.

Thanks for your help! We actually decided on using my vegan vanilla bean recipe (although the frosting was not vegan) and I made elegant chocolate decorations to top them. I personally would've gone with the chocolate cupcake, but oh well.

And the appletini cupcake sounds awesome...will definitely give it a try!

I just did a chocolate cupcake with a snicker bar ganache center topped with caramel bc...caramel drizzle, chocolate drizzle and peanuts...its' on my blog if you want to see a pic.
BTW....delicious.....

I would really like to know how you did your snickers ganache.

3 to 1 ratio of melted snickers (over a double boiler) to up to boil cream. I also add a TBSP of butter once I've stirred in the cream. Warning....there is a down side, I kept getting peanuts caught in the tip when I went to fill the cupcakes.....but you could probably just chop your snickers finer than I did.

SandyOh, I have been to your site in the past by just stumbling around cupcake sites and I just recognized it here. You are so talented. Would you be interested in sharing your caramel buttercream (I don't have one), and your cupcake recipe... it looks so dark in the picture of the snickers cupcakes. I am not a chocolate fan, but I love snickers bars. Please let me know. You should put your cupcake photo here for others to see.

Thanks SandiOh for the recipe.

SandiOh, I have been all around your site.. I really like it. I did look up recipes in your search and didn't find it. I will look again and let you know if I run into a snag. Thank you so much for sharing!!!!

I don't do very well with the computer stuff, I need to learn how to link within my blog better...but here is the recipe for the cupcakes, scroll down to th samoa cupcakes...
http://putacupcakeinit.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2010-04-19T17%3A58%3A00-05%3A00&max-results=7

SandyOh, I am getting the snickers tonight and will be making your cupcakes. I am sure I will be back on here singing your praises after I make them.

I'm drooling while reading this post. Holy smokes! This all sounds so good.

Wow, thanks for sharing recipes, they sound absolutely delicious!

Thanks Sue!