Week Two: Caramel Macchiato Cupcakes

This was, by far, the longest time that I have ever spent making 12 cupcakes in my life!! I feel that it was a tad rushed, as I wasn't there to take the cupcakes out of the oven, and I could definitely improve for next time. But, saying that, I love the use of coffee in the icing, and how the caramel cuts through the heaviness of the coffee taste. It is perfect loveliness!!

So, to begin with, I had a quick meeting in the city in the morning, so I got to writing up my timetable the night before so that I could make the most of my time. 

I woke up, had breakfast, and speedily whisked up the cupcake batter. Hence, why I don't have any pictures of that process. The thing that I noticed about this batter was that you reverse the conventional cupcake recipe by mixing the dry ingredients with the butter before adding the wet ingredients. Usually, it is the other way around. There is something about rubbing butter into flour and sugar that is so very soothing... 

So after I plonked the cupcakes into the oven, I looked at the clock ... And my alarm did not go off to tell me to go get the train for the meeting!! I had three minutes to go, so I (insensibly) quickly ran to my room, put my shoes on, told my flatmate to get the cupcakes out of the oven in 12 minutes (please;)), and sprinted to the train. Which I, of course, missed. 

After catching my breath, and thinking about this things sensibly, I waited on the bus and told the person I was meeting I would be late.

Then followed a series of images and conversing back and forth between me and my flat mate, debating whether the cupcakes were ready to be taken out of the oven yet or not.

Not yet ready

To me, this looked ready, but perhaps it need a minute longer? Anyways ...

My awesome flat mate, called Caroline (who will be helping with future bakes), put this cute mini tent over the cupcakes :D

After the meeting, and the 40 minutes bus ride back to uni, I got on to whisking up the icing. And then I remembered I was supposed to put coffee in the cupcake batter ... Oh well.

I had left out the butter out of the fridge that I needed for the icing in a small mixing bowl when I left that morning, so it was now lovely and soft. Perfect to mix into the icing sugar!! 

And, I did not forget to put the coffee into the mixture this time!! haha. 

Mixing up the coffee icing

Coring the cupcakes for the caramel filling

Next I got started on the caramel for the filling and decoration on top. 

Basically, all you boil up in a saucepan is water and castor sugar. I felt like I was doing a science experiment ;) 

This is what the caramel mixture looked like after around a minute

I was looking for a caramel colour, and since I have never seen this done, or done it myself, I was very dubious whether I had done it right, because it was taking a LONG time. 

And finally ...

The colour I was looking for!! 

Next I took it off the stove, added in some salted butter, and stirred that in while it was hissing and coming together. After it came together, I added some double cream (do not ask me the difference between the MANY different creams they have here in the UK!! Because I have no clue), and stirred that in with more salt. 

Awesome caramel!! 

And then it said in the recipe to let it cool before adding it to the inside of the cupcake. So, I placed it in the fridge and went to go do some work. 

A disastrous move!! When I came back it was all hard and unusable!!!! 

Hard caramel

I quickly texted Jennifer to see if she would know what to do, and whilst I was doing that I placed the saucepan back on the heat. While that worked, it meant the caramel was hot again!! 

I decided to stir some more cream into the caramel, because I thought maybe that would stop the caramel from getting hard?!?

And after leaving it in the fridge for less time this time, it was still hard!!! 

AHH

So I heated it up again, tried to cool it down in front of the window by stirring it furiously and drizzling it into the pot, and quickly placed some of it inside the cupcakes. I then placed it, not in the fridge, but by the window to cool more while I iced the cupcakes.

Now the fun part!! I had bought a palette knife from Lidl, as Martha noted how useful they are when icing cakes, which definitely helped me make the icing all smooth!! A great investment on my part ;) 

And before I knew it, they were all iced.

I then took a breath, in ... out, and started piping the caramel on top of the cakes using a funnelled baking paper. Which did not work. So, losing precious time, and promptly hardening the caramel, I drizzled the caramel using a spoon onto the cupcakes. 

The final product!! My awesomely, unique Caramel Macchiato Cupcakes!! 

While it did not look much like Martha's cupcakes, which were lovingly piped with Macchiato-like caramel toppings, I think there is something about drizzled caramel that is just so irresistible :D

If any of you guys know why my caramel did not turn out as a liquid after freezing it, please do tell me!! I definitely want to improve upon my caramel-making skills for the future bakes!!

Till next week,

The Baking Students xx