Dark Chocolate Cupcakes with Salted Caramel Frosting
Moist dark chocolate cupcakes with a decadent salted caramel cream cheese frosting!
Servings: 32 Mini Cupcakes
Calories: 194kcal
Ingredients
For the cupcakes:
- 1 cup white granulated sugar
- 1 cup light brown sugar
- 1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
- 1 cup unsweetened dark cocoa powder
- 2 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 4 egg yolks
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 1 cup strong black coffee
- 1/2 cup flavorless oil
- 1 tsp almond extract
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 cup sour cream
For the Frosting:
- 4 ounces cream cheese room temperature
- 1 stick butter room temperature
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 1/2 cup caramel sauce
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 tsp salt
Instructions
For the cupcakes:
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
- Line a mini cupcake pan with paper wrappers and set aside. I used a 2 1/4" cupcake pan from Ikea. This recipe makes approximately 32 mini cupcakes, so you may have to work in batches.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the white granulated sugar, brown sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
- Add the egg yolks, buttermilk, coffee, oil, almond extract, and vanilla extract and mix with an electric mixer until thoroughly combined.
- Stir in the sour cream.
- Fill each cupcake wrapper 3/4 full with batter and bake 15 minutes.
- Allow to cool before frosting.
For the Frosting:
- In a large mixing bowl, with an electric mixer, mix together the cream cheese, butter, powdered sugar, caramel sauce, vanilla extract, and salt until smooth.
- Add the frosting to a piping bag or a resealable plastic bag with a corner snipped off. Pipe the frosting on to the cooled cupcakes.
Notes
For a dark chocolate bundt cake, butter the inside of a bundt cake pan, add the batter, bake for 40-45 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean, cool 15 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
To make homemade caramel sauce: add 1 cup of sugar and 1/3 cup water (or enough to moisten the sugar) to a sauce pan and cook over medium heat, without stirring, until a golden brown syrup forms. Turn off the heat and stir in 3/4 cup heavy cream and 2 Tbsp butter.