Caramel Cupcakes with a Tall Crown

Caramel Cupcakes with a Tall Crown keeps the shopping list focused on Cake Flour, Cornstarch, and Baking Powder. It serves 12 people.

Count on 20 minutes of prep, 10 minutes of cooking, about 45 minutes from the first measurement to the plate.

Ingredients Method

What goes in the bowl

For the Cupcakes

• 1 ¾ cups Cake Flour
• 1 tablespoon Cornstarch
• 1 ¼ teaspoon Baking Powder
• ¾ teaspoon Salt
• ½ cup Butter
• 1 ¼ cups Sugar
• 1 ½ Eggs
• 2 Egg Yolks
• ⅛ teaspoon Almond extract
• ½ teaspoon Vanilla extract
• ½ cup Sour Cream
• ¼ cup Milk

For Assembly

• ½ cup Salted Caramel Sauce
• ½ Recipe Caramel Swiss Meringue Buttercream

How the cooking goes

1. Warm the oven to 325°F convection.
2. Line standard muffin tins with cupcake liners.
3. Sift together cake flour, cornstarch, salt and baking powder. Keep it to one side.
4. In a small bowl whisk together milk and sour cream. Keep it to one side.
5. In the bowl of a electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time followed by egg yolks, scraping down the sides of the bowl after every two eggs or so. Add the extracts with the last bit of eggs.
6. Switch the mixer to low and then alternately add the flour mixture and sour cream. You don’t wait until all the flour has incorporated until you add the next batch. You just keep adding with two hands. Pro-style. You do stop the mixer to add the last of the sour cream because it helps to scrape it all out with a flexible spatula.
7. Portion or pour into prepared muffin cups.
8. Bake in preheated oven until a cake tester comes out with a few clinging crumbs. This will take about 10-12 minutes depending on your oven.
9. Cool about 5 minutes in the tins then turn them out onto a rack. Allow to cool until it is no longer warm.
10. Move some of the salted caramel to a piping bag and inject some of the caramel into the center. You can also cut out a small piece and the fill it completely but that always seems unnecessary to me these days.
11. Frost with your favorite buttercream! You used the caramel Swiss meringue buttercream.

After it comes off the heat

Let the pan settle before you slice, so the crumb stays together. Cover leftovers once they are cool.

If you want another plate from Cupcakes, open Lemon Cupcakes with a Tall Crown and St Patrick’s Day Cupcakes with a Tall Crown.