Hershey's Chocolate Caramel Cupcakes

That's right. Another recipe inspired by Never Bashful With Butter. That woman is my ultimate hero. I have never cooked any one of her recipes or recommended recipes without absolutely loving it. In fact, not far from now I'll be posting about her amazing sugar cookies that I make every holiday these days.
The recipe itself actually comes from the Hershey's website and also here's a link to NBWB's original post on it since I used her recipe for the caramel (which I totally ruined, but we'll get to that later).

Technically I was making these cupcakes for my cousin who had just turned seventeen. I was running a bit late but his only real request was "Chocolate". I honestly couldn't get any more out of him then grunts, but what do you expect from a seventeen year old boy? I figured it wouldn't be too hard to find a recipe for a simple chocolate cupcake, but I wanted one with a little bit more to it than chocolate. I wanted something that would make it stand out but not be too time consuming. I definitely found that in this recipe. Also I'm not above saying that I think I'm getting better at speeding up my cooking these days. I tend to lose a lot of time in the checking, double checking, and triple checking. Let's just say I've managed to achieve a reputation in my family for reading recipes wrong and I've been working hard to turn that around.

I've filled cupcakes before, but every time I'm going to do it I get nervous for some strange reason. Like I'm going to accidentally cut the cupcake in half or something ridiculous. Luckily enough that didn't happen. I do however wish that I had had a bit more luck with the filling. I've never tried to make caramel before so I know it's totally my fault, but I just could not make stuff thicken. Alas, I loaded up the cupcakes anyways. One layer caramel and one layer chocolate chips. Muffin uses chocolate shavings and I regret not doing the same. Not only was the caramel not thick enough to be noticed easily, but the chocolate chips didn't fully melt in the warm cupcake and managed to overpower the caramel. Oh and I also want to mention that if you've never filled cupcakes before, it's simple. Just take a small knife and cut a a cone shape out of the top of the cupcake. Fill the cupcake and then cut off the tip of the cone so that it doesn't sit above the cupcake and look funny :)

When I brought brad his 12, he scarfed one down in absolutely no time at all. However, his pleasant sounding grunts weren't really a for sure for sure indicator of whether or not they were good. I had two that I really liked, but honestly I can't remember the taste anymore. After the second one I was just so put off of chocolate. I'd been eating a lot of it for the past week or so in bar and kiss form so the cupcakes were overkill for me. However my mom must have eaten like five of them, she thought they were amazing.

Well I'm sure you're done drooling now, so if you want you can make them for yourself. Again the recipe is from the Hershey's website


Hershey's Chocolate Caramel Cupcakes
Makes about 30 cupcakes

2 cups sugar
1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water

Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Pour batter into prepared pans.

CUPCAKES: Line muffin cups (2-1/2 inches in diameter) with paper bake cups. Heat oven to 350°F. Fill cups 2/3 full with batter. Bake 22 to 25 minutes. Cool completely. Frost.

Hershey's Perfectly Chocolate Frosting

(I used two batches to frost all my cupcakes generously)

1 stick (1/2 cup) butter or margarine
2/3 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa
3 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Melt butter. Stir in cocoa. Alternately add powdered sugar and milk, beating to spreading consistency. Add small amount additional milk, if needed. Stir in vanilla. About 2 cups frosting.

Never Bashful With Butter's easy Caramel recipe

1 Cup heavy cream
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
3 teaspoons vanilla

In the pan you'll place the butter, half of the cream and half of the sugar. bring mixture to a boil. When the mixture begins to thicken slightly, add the remaining sugar. bring to a full boil. when the mixture starts to thicken and turn a light brown colour, add the remaining cream and sugar.

turn temperature down to a few notches below medium. The mixture should remain boiling. stir constantly and do not allow the bottom to scorch. keep stirring and heating for about 10 minutes. when the mixture starts thickening up like pudding, remove from heat.

Let cool about 5 minutes (caramel will still be hot) or until the cupcakes are out of the oven.