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These Double Salted Caramel Cupcakes have a moist vanilla cake, salted caramel filling, and a delicious caramel buttercream!

These Double Salted Caramel Cupcakes have a moist vanilla cake, salted caramel filling and a delicious caramel buttercream!

For me, Easter conjures up happy memories: Easter egg hunts, dark chocolate bunnies (the bigger, the better), purple sashes on giant crosses, Whopper’s Robin’s Eggs, and fancy hats. Yes, fancy hats (thanks, Mom!)!

This year I can add these Double Salted Caramel Cupcakes to that list because they are fabulous! And salted caramel in cupcakes makes me happy.

Actually, come to think of it, ALL salted caramel makes me happy!

Recalling my happy Easter memories lead me to think about other things that make me happy.

These Double Salted Caramel Cupcakes have a moist vanilla cake, salted caramel filling and a delicious caramel buttercream!

In our High School yearbook there was a page where each senior finished the sentence, “Happiness is…” While some seniors got carried away, I simply said, “Happiness is Chocolate” but I realize now that happiness is so much more than that

These Double Salted Caramel Cupcakes have a moist vanilla cake, salted caramel filling and a delicious caramel buttercream!
These Caramel Apple Cupcakes are a moist cinnamon cake filled with a spiced apple compote and are frosted with an easy salted caramel buttercream!
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Happiness is a perfectly prepared piecrust…

Happiness is finding the one person in the World who perfectly complements me, because, when you think about it, how impossible does that seem? Lucky girl…

Happiness is giving of yourself and your talents to others…

Happiness is becoming lost in a good book…

Happiness is having a library with a spiral staircase and towers upon towers of books (you know, like Beauty and the Beast…do I want too much?)…

Fine, Happiness is ANY library!…

These Double Salted Caramel Cupcakes have a moist vanilla cake, salted caramel filling and a delicious caramel buttercream!

Happiness is sinking your hands into homemade bread dough and then watching it bake into a perfect yeasty loaf…

Happiness is an extra hour of sunlight after the longest, coldest Winter EVER

Happiness is growing closer to Christ…

Happiness is seeing someone overcome with pleasure enjoying a dish or dessert I made…

Happiness is finding the perfect word…

These Double Salted Caramel Cupcakes have a moist vanilla cake, salted caramel filling and a delicious caramel buttercream!

Happiness is Chocolate. Because, let’s be honest, my 17-year-old self was on the right track! 😉

And finally (at least for this shortlist), Happiness is Salted caramel!

These Double Salted Caramel Cupcakes have a moist vanilla cake, salted caramel filling and a delicious caramel buttercream!

These Double Salted Caramel Cupcakes have a moist, vanilla base with a salted caramel filling and a swirl of a sweet caramel buttercream frosting. The frosting is light and fluffy and the cake is generously scented with vanilla. I adapted my Copycat Sprinkles Vanilla Cupcake recipe for the base, so you know it’s going to be divine!

These Double Salted Caramel Cupcakes have a moist vanilla cake, salted caramel filling and a delicious caramel buttercream!

 

I had this vision for caramel cupcakes with adorable caramel bird’s nests on top filled with Whopper’s mini Robin’s Eggs. In reality, executing on this vision was a Giant Disaster complete with 1st degree burns and a few expletives!

Fortunately, The Husband came to the rescue! Remember how I said above that my Husband can fix anything? I wasn’t lying. He swooped into the kitchen, declared that my ruined caramel could still make my beautiful bird’s nests just as I imagined, and he created an ingenious collapsible aluminum foil ball that the caramel could be drizzled over and then easily removed when cooled. I kid you not – he thought of these magic collapsable balls shotgun in our tiny, galley kitchen while I nursed my burned hand and wounded pride. {Ok, I was making the nests, but my pride was still wounded….grrr caramel}

So this post is devoted to Easter, Double Salted Caramel Cupcakes, and Happiness.

These Double Salted Caramel Cupcakes have a moist vanilla cake, salted caramel filling and a delicious caramel buttercream!

What would you say? Happiness is…

These Double Salted Caramel Cupcakes have a moist vanilla cake, salted caramel filling and a delicious caramel buttercream!
5 from 1 ratings

Double Salted Caramel Cupcakes

These Double Salted Caramel Cupcakes have a moist vanilla cake, salted caramel filling, and a delicious caramel buttercream!
Prep: 30 minutes
Cook: 15 minutes
Assembling Time: 30 minutes
Total: 1 hour 15 minutes
Servings: 24 Cupcakes

Ingredients 
 

For the Cupcakes:

For the Frosting:

Instructions 

For the cupcakes:

  • Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line 2 muffin tins with 24 cupcake liners.
  • Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt together in a medium bowl and set aside.
  • Cream butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating to combine after each addition.
  • Add vanilla, sour cream and almond extract, beating until just combined.
  • Reduced the mixer speed to low and stir in the flour in several additions. Remove the bowl from the mixer and stir the last bit of flour in with a spatula until just combined. Do not over mix.
  • Scoop batter into cupcake liners and bake in preheated oven for 14-18 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out with a few clinging crumbs.
  • Allow to cool completely before icing.

For the Frosting:

  • In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter and sugar on medium-high speed until combined, then add cream and continue to beat until light and fluffy. Slowly pour caramel into frosting and beat until combined. Taste as you go! Pipe or spread onto your cooled cupcakes.

For the Nests:

  • My nests were not edible because the caramel was burnt, but I actually quite liked the color contrast.
  • Create hollow balls of aluminum foil, gathered at one end to form a “handle”. Place a wire cooling rack over a sheet of aluminum foil. Spray balls liberally with cooking spray.
  • Combine 2 cups sugar and ½ cup water in a large, heavy bottomed sauce pan over medium-high heat, stirring or whisking until sugar dissolves. Cook to a hard crack (310°F) over medium-high heat, swirling the pot occasionally then place pot in a large bowl of ice water to stop the cooking process.
  • Drizzle caramel over aluminum foil balls. Place the balls on the rack using the “handle” to cool. Gently crush aluminum foil and pull out.

Notes

Notes: Cupcake recipe adapted from Layers of Happiness

Nutrition

Calories: 330kcal | Carbohydrates: 44g | Protein: 3g | Fat: 17g | Saturated Fat: 10g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 4g | Trans Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 64mg | Sodium: 200mg | Potassium: 48mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 34g | Vitamin A: 534IU | Vitamin C: 1mg | Calcium: 37mg | Iron: 1mg
Course: Dessert
Cuisine: American
Calories: 330
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These Double Salted Caramel Cupcakes have a moist vanilla cake, salted caramel filling and a delicious caramel buttercream!

Hi, I’m Chef Lindsey!

I am the baker, recipe developer, writer, and photographer behind Chef Lindsey Farr. I believe in delicious homemade food and the power of dessert!

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28 Comments

  1. These are super gorgeous!!! All that caramel. And those nests!! I’m swooning. Pinned!

  2. Ah, your husband is so sweet and the bird’s nests turned out wonderfully. I saw these on Food Gawker this morning and thought they were so pretty and I was so excited to see your name beneath them!

  3. Loved this post! It sparked the happiness my afternoon haha. That is so funny and brilliant that you said Happiness is chocolate. You definitely were on the right track about chocolate, at a young age. I feel the same way about chocolate…and many of the other things you listed.

    You and your hubs really do sound like a great match! What a clever way to rescue your mishap and manage to turn it into something so cool. Haha it’s not every guy that can do that…some dudes just add more headache to the frustration when something goes wrong.

    1. 😀 I’m glad I could bring a little pinch of happiness to your day! I knew what I was about at 17! 😉

      I was planning on boiling sugar and water to a hard crack for the nests but when he suggested just using my burned caramel, I was relieved! Such a good rescue!

  4. Aww what a sweet post dear! Happiness definitely includes cupcakes and salted caramel anything ;–) These look adorable! xx

  5. I love your post! Happiness is so many things from simple to extravagant. Like the first walk in a nice spring day after that awful winter, receiving a card in the mail, and flowers. Any kind of flowers. Also, these cupcakes!

  6. Aww I love this post. Reading about happiness made me smile. Your husband sounds amazing. Salted caramel….mmmm…yum. Your caramel nests are gorgeous. The entire cupcake is a masterpiece. Pinned pinned pinned

    1. Lol Thanks for the pin, ChiChi! My husband is amazing even if I am just a touch biased! Writing this post made me smile too!

  7. You and I have SO much in common-I agree with all your happiness-es! And Randy is such a GENIUS!!! I never would have thought to turn the caramel into these adorable nests, so so sooo smart!

    and ooooh salted caramel is my new favorite thing so these cupcakes are like AGHHHH SO GOOD!

    1. Well the caramel nests were my idea but he figured out how to create a mold that was easy to get off!!!

      I ALMOST brought you some, but gave up when I couldn’t figure out how to transport them without making a huge caramel mess!

      1. well then you’re both brilliant!

        and lol yeah that would’ve been trickyyyy-tasty! but tricky 😛