This post may contain affiliate links. Please read our disclosure policy.
Salted caramel chocolate cupcakes-your favorite coffeehouse drink in cupcake form!
I’m SO EXCITED to share with you all this cupcake recipe. I truly believe this is the best cupcake I’ve ever made. The buttercream tastes exactly like the first sip of the salted caramel mocha drink you get at Starbucks (well, sans caffeine).
It’s my favorite holiday/seasonal drink and now it’s in cupcake form – brilliant!
I brought this cupcake to so many people. I brought it in for my coworkers and I brought it to happy hour with my friends. Upon my arrival with the cupcake box to the bar, the bartender asked me, “oh, are those cupcakes from the cupcake place in the shopping center?” You have no idea how awesome it felt to tell her, “nope, I made them!” with a big, cheesy grin :) I love that my frosting skills have improved so much. I remember my first few trials with frosting. Oh man, those were the days!
These will probably be the moistest cupcakes you will EVER EVER have. Seriously. Also, in the process of buttercream recipe testing, I ate so much buttercream that my hips are cursing me and my jeans aren’t happy!
Alright, so, if you aren’t in the mood to get up to go to Starbucks, whip up a batch of these and you won’t even miss that green lady in your hand :)
Salted Caramel Chocolate Cupcakes
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 box devil’s food cake mix
- 1 package of Jello instant chocolate pudding
- 1 cup (230 g) sour cream
- 1 cup (237 ml) vegetable oil
- 4 eggs, beaten
- ½ cup (118 ml) milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 ½ cup (270 g) mini chocolate chips
For the salted caramel buttercream
- 15–20 caramel candies, unwrapped
- 3–4 tablespoon (3 tablespoon) heavy cream
- 16 tablespoons (224 g) unsalted butter, room temperature (2 sticks)
- 1 ½ teaspoon kosher salt, divided
- 4 cups (480 g) powdered sugar, divided
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 °F (177 °C) and line muffin tins with baking cups.
- In a bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment or in a large bowl, mix together cake mix, instant pudding, sour cream, vegetable oil, eggs, milk, and vanilla. Mix very well. Gently stir in the chocolate chips with a spatula.
- Equally divide the batter into the baking cups, filling 2/3 of the way full. Bake for 18-22 minutes, let cool for 5 minutes in pan, then remove and place them on wire cooling racks to cool completely.
- In the meantime, make your buttercream by first melting the caramel candies and heavy cream in a small saucepan over medium heat. Once the caramel is all melted, stir in 1/2 tsp. of salt.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter until light and fluffy. Add in the remaining 1 tsp. of salt.
- Gently add half of the powdered sugar to the butter and beat until light and fluffy. Then drizzle in the caramel while the mixer is on low. If the caramel has hardened up a bit that you can’t pour it, heat it up just enough so you can pour it into the mixer with ease.
- Add the remaining 2 cups of powdered sugar and beat until well combined.
- Put the frosting in a piping bag fitted with a pastry tip of your choice.
- Pipe the frosting on top of the cooled cupcakes.
- Store cupcakes in an airtight container for up to 4 days.
How many cupcakes does this make? I’m assuming 2 dozen!?!
Sorry about that, I recently converted my recipes to use a different plugin and it didn’t convert over all my words. Yes, it’s 2 dozen :)
Thank you so much for your quick response! I’ll let you know how they turn out.
Could I use a bag of the caramel baking bits in place of the bags of wrapped caramels?
I don’t think that’d work, unfortunately.
I found your recipe almost 2 years ago when I was living up in WY; I made adjustments for high altitude baking and everyone thought I was a rockstar baker! Your recipe, followed to a tee, has made me an excellent baker :-)
These cupcakes made me a hit in TX and now I’m now in OK, getting ready to try this as a cake recipe for my grandson, minus the caramel in the frosting. Wish me luck… I’ll let you know how it turns out….
Still my all-time favorite recipe,
Camille
Awesome! I hope they turned out for you :)
These are going to be my next cupcake! I’ve been in a cupcake making frenzy lately :) I only have one question.. What tip did you use for the piping?
Good question…I believe it was an closed-star tip!
I am assuming that we should use cake mix without the pudding added (like Duncan Hines) and skip the pudding mix if the cake mix already contains pudding (Pillsbury). Please confirm.
Correct.
I made these yesterday and the cake was great…I had problems with the frosting thought. It separated…is there a difference in caramels? I used Brach’s. It tasted great but was greasy and looked weird.
Hi, Brach’s caramel might be too oily but I didn’t test it with that but I know from experience their caramels seem to be more on the oily side and definitely don’t yield a great texture for cooking.
Well, this is 2 yrs after the comment, but I used Kraft caramels and my frosting also was very greasy…almost like marzipan consistency.
Love the flavor, but unless you have any other suggestions, I will make my own salted caramel and try again.
I was really hoping this would work, bc it’s a lot less work than making my own for 150 cupcakes for my nieces I Do BBQ. LOL
Thanks!
Hi there – how would you recommend making the frosting if you already have salted caramel on hand?
Hi Laura, someone right above your comment asked the same thing. I said maybe use 2/3 cup of salted caramel.
My frosting also separated out and got real greasy – I had to smoosh it like pancakes over the cupcakes, but it ended up tasting great! I think now that I am paying for attention to the recipe, I used salted butter instead of unsalted. So that might be a mistake the rest of the commenters made! Make sure it is unsalted! Awesome recipe, thanks!
Hi just to ask, if I were to use caramel sauce bought off the shelves how much should I use? Should I also heat it up & mix with the heavy cream again?
Hi, I’m not quite sure. I would say maybe 2/3 cup? You shouldn’t have to heat it up with the cream.
I just put these in the oven… can’t wait to try them!
Hope you enjoyed them!