Cheat’s Chocolate Cupcakes with Salted Caramel Frosting

Deliciously easy!

For those of you that have been reading my blog for a while, you will know that I rarely can be bothered to pipe frosting. However, this recipe was an exception 🙂

I did still use my cheat’s way of making the cupcakes themselves. My thought is why bother risking making a cake batter from scratch when I know this method using a store-bought mix will turn out perfectly moist every time?

Of course if you don’t like chocolate cupcakes then you can mix and match the frosting with a different flavour of cake.

The recipe for the frosting is adapted from one I found on SBS Food.

Ingredients – makes 12 cupcakes:

• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1/3 cup light sour cream
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1 packet (340g/12oz) chocolate cake mix  (I used my supermarket’s own brand)

Frosting:

• 125g/4.5oz unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1/4 cup golden syrup
• 30g/1oz brown sugar
• 1 big pinch sea salt flakes
• 125g/4.5oz icing sugar (powdered sugar)

Method:

• Heat your oven to 180C/160C fan forced/350F.
• Line 12 holes of a muffin pan with cupcake papers.
• Put the milk, oil, sour cream and egg into a jug and whisk to combine.
• Place the cake mix into a medium bowl. Add the liquid from the jug and then mix with a fork until smooth.
• Carefully divide the batter between the cupcake papers in the pan.
• Bake for approximately 15 minutes – the time taken will depend on the depth of the cupcake papers that you are using. They are cooked when a skewer inserted into one of the centre cakes comes out clean.
• Remove from the oven and leave in the pan for 5 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
• To make the frosting, put the butter, golden syrup, sugar and salt into a bowl and use an electric mixer to beat until pale and fluffy. Gradually fold in the icing sugar until you have a smooth frosting.
• Once the cupcakes have cooled, pipe or spread the frosting over the top of each cupcake.
• Serve and enjoy!