Salted Caramel Cupcakes

What better way to kick off a renewal of SSUR than this sweet and salty combination that has become hugely popular in the last few years?  When you take something as rich and often blindingly sweet as caramel and then cut it with the shock of sea salt, you really have a killer combination.  I decided to celebrate this union in the form of a cupcake.

The culprits. 

Ingredients:
-1 box chocolate cake mix plus eggs, oil, and water you need for the mix
-1 small box instant chocolate pudding mix
-1 jar of caramel topping
-sea salt, coarsely ground

1.  First, make the cupcakes as instructed on the box.  Except, you will add a package of pudding mix into the batter to make the cupcakes extra moist.  It's soooo worth it...you'll get some really fantastically springy and delicious cupcakes.

I also ran out of cupcake liners, so I made some out of squares of parchment paper.  They make the cupcakes look like they're from a cafe.

Pour in the lovely batter.

2.  Here are the done cupcakes!  And how cute does my cupcake oven mitt look holding a cupcake?!  My friend Dani made this for me to accompany my tailor-made apron, also in cupcake print.

Let these babies cool.  That's important.

Okay, here's where you can do one of two things.  You could just top the cupcake with the caramel and salt and be done with it.  Watch this caramel action sequence.

Ooooooey gooey caramel!

Another thing you can do is cut a 1" hole in the top of the cupcake and remove the inside.

Pop!

3.  Drizzle a good spoonful of caramel into the center, and add a pinch or two of sea salt.

See that pool?  It won't stay like that for too long...the cake will absorb it.  But that's perfect :) 

I love this sea salt grinder. 

4.  Replace the top (kinda lopsided for fun) and drizzle more caramel.  Add another pinch of salt. 

This is really quite fun.

You can even top it with some frosting and add a caramel square on top, but since I don't like frosting and the caramel is sweet enough, I left it as is.  I also liked how they tasted after the caramel has kinda soaked through the super-moist cupcake.  Enjoy!

For a printable version of this recipe, please click here.