Caramel Cupcakes

These scratch Caramel Cupcakes are moist, soft, and so flavorful! We've topped them with a decadent homemade caramel frosting.

If you're looking for a go-to caramel cupcake recipe, these are sure to please a crowd. Keep this recipe in mind for the caramel lovers in your life!

Why we Love Them

There are many reasons to love these cupcakes. Here are just a few!

• Moist, tender crumb (Thanks to the cake flour, brown sugar, and sour cream in the recipe).
• Wonderful brown sugar and caramel flavor.
• Perfect birthday cake recipe, fall cake recipe, and more.
• The caramel frosting is heavenly!
• We love caramel cake recipes! Don't miss our scratch Caramel Cake, Toffee Pecan Caramel Cake, and Caramel Italian Cream Cake just to name a few!

Ingredients for Caramel Cupcakes

Here's a quick look at the ingredients for the caramel cupcakes! You can find the full recipe (along with the recipe and ingredients for the caramel frosting) further down in this post.

Cake Flour: We like to use cake flour as it contains less protein than all purpose flour. This makes for less gluten formation and a softer, more tender cake.

Dark Brown Sugar: We used dark brown sugar but light brown sugar works nicely also. Brown sugar will give you a deeper flavor as it contains more molasses. We love cakes that call for brown sugar as they not only add flavor, but also more moisture.

Sour Cream: We recommend "full fat" rather than reduced fat for a richer flavor and for the nice texture that it gives to the cake.

Unsalted Butter: We use unsalted butter so that we have more control over the amount of salt in the recipe. However, if you prefer to use salted butter, you can omit the salt from this recipe.

How to Make Caramel Cupcakes

You can find the full, printable recipe card for these moist Caramel Cupcakes at the bottom of this post. Here is a quick look at our steps!

• Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Place cupcake liners into cupcake pans.
• In a separate bowl combine the cake flour, baking powder and salt. Whisk 30 seconds to blend. Set aside.

• In another bowl combine the sour cream, vanilla extract, vegetable oil, and milk. Stir and set aside.

• Add butter to mixing bowl and mix on low to medium speed until smooth.
• Slowly add the white and brown sugar mixing on medium speed until the mixture has lightened in color and is fluffy- Approximately three minutes.

• Next, add the room temperature eggs one at a time, mixing after each addition until yolk is blended.

• With the mixer on low speed, add the dry ingredients alternately with the wet ingredients beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. Stop and scrape down the sides of bowl once or twice as needed. After the last addition of dry ingredients, mix just until blended.

• Add the cupcake batter to the cupcake pans (prepared with liners). Each cupcake will have approximately ¼ cup batter.

• Bake for 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick can be inserted and removed with no crumbs or just a few moist crumbs attached.

Caramel Frosting

While the cupcakes are cooling, you can prepare the frosting (if you haven't already)!

This delicious caramel frosting starts with first creating a simple homemade caramel sauce.

• In a saucepan, heat the unsalted butter, brown sugar, and light corn syrup over medium heat, stirring constantly. Bring the mixture to a boil and continue cooking for 3 minutes, stirring constantly. Try to keep mixture off sides of pan.

• Add the cream and salt and continue stirring until it begins to boil.

• Remove from heat, add the vanilla, and cool for 15 minutes or so. Pour into the bowl of your mixer if it is metal or a heat proof bowl. You can also use a hand mixer. Pour carefully as this is very hot.

• Add the confectioners sugar to the hot mixture bit by bit, mixing at medium speed until smooth.

• The mixture will thicken as the powdered sugar is added. Add a small amount of very hot water (Tablespoon or teaspoon) as needed until the frosting reaches a good consistency for spreading.

Decorating the Caramel Cupcakes

Once the cupcakes have cooled, it is time to decorate! You can decorate however you like, the caramel frosting is easy to work with.

We decorated our cupcakes very simply using a large star (1M) piping tip. (You can find more details on star tip piping in our quick star tip piping basics video tutorial!)

Recipe FAQs

More Caramel Cakes

If you love caramel cake recipes, we have made several! Some of our favorites are Caramel Apple Cake, Toffee Pecan Caramel Cake, Caramel Banana Cake, and Chocolate Caramel Cake.

Thanks so much for stopping by! We'd love for you to check out our collection of hundreds of cake recipes. This includes all of our favorite cake recipes from scratch as well as cake mix recipes!

Also, if you'd like to learn more about cake decorating, make sure to visit our free cake tutorials section!

Caramel Cupcakes

BY Melissa and Bebe

These moist, soft caramel cupcakes have wonderful brown sugar flavor. We've topped them with a decadent caramel frosting!

Prep Time: 15 minutes mins

Cook Time: 18 minutes mins

Course: Dessert

Servings: 26 cupcakes

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Ingredients

• ▢ 1 ½ sticks (170g) unsalted butter, softened (Should still hold its shape but dent when pressed.)
• ▢ 1 cup (200g) white granulated sugar
• ▢ 1 cup (217g) Dark Brown Sugar (light brown is fine also.) (If not using a digital scale, make sure to pack the brown sugar into your measuring cup for most accurate measurement.)
• ▢ 3 large eggs, room temperature (If you are in a hurry, place the eggs in a bowl of warm water for 5 minutes.)
• ▢ 3 cups (342g) cake flour (If not using a digital scale, lightly spoon into measuring cups and level with knife for most accurate measurement.)
• ▢ 1 Tablespoon (12g) baking powder
• ▢ ½ teaspoon (3g) salt
• ▢ 1 cup (242g) sour cream (We use "full fat" rather than reduced.)
• ▢ 2 teaspoons (8g) vanilla extract.
• ▢ ½ cup (121g milk) (We use whole or 2 percent milk.)
• ▢ ⅓ cup (68g) vegetable oil (We use canola oil.)

For the Caramel Frosting

• ▢ 1 ½ sticks (170g) unsalted butter
• ▢ 1 ½ cups (326g) firmly packed dark brown sugar (Light brown is fine also!)
• ▢ 1 (18g) tablespoon light corn syrup
• ▢ ⅓ cup (72g) whipping cream (half and half or whole milk works also)
• ▢ 2 teaspoons (8g) vanilla extract
• ▢ ½ teaspoon (3g) salt (add additional to your liking)
• ▢ 4 cups (460g) confectioners sugar (measure then sift)

Instructions

For the Caramel Cupcakes

• Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Place cupcake liners into cupcake pans.
• In a separate bowl combine the cake flour, baking powder and salt. Whisk 30 seconds to blend. Set aside.
• In another bowl combine the sour cream, vanilla extract, vegetable oil, and milk. Stir and set aside.
• Add butter to mixing bowl and mix on low to medium speed until smooth.
• Slowly add the white and brown sugar mixing on MEDIUM speed until the mixture has lightened in color and is fluffy- Approximately 3 minutes.
• Next, add the eggs one at a time, mixing after each each addition until yolk is blended.
• With the mixer on low speed, add the dry ingredients alternately with the wet ingredients beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. Stop and scrape down the sides of bowl once or twice as need. After the last addition of dry ingredients, mix just until blended.
• Add the cupcake batter to the cupcake pans (prepared with liners). Each cupcake will have approximately ¼ cup batter. Bake for 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick can be inserted and removed with no crumbs or just a few moist crumbs attached.
• Makes approximately 7.5-8 cups of batter- enough for 28-30 cupcakes.

For the Caramel Frosting

• In a rather deep saucepan, heat butter, brown sugar, and light corn syrup over medium to medium-high heat, stirring constantly. Bring the mixture to a boil and continue cooking for 3 minutes, stirring constantly. Try to keep mixture off sides of pan.
• Add the cream and salt and continue stirring until it begins to boil. Remove from heat, add the vanilla, and cool for 15 minutes or so.
• Pour into the bowl of your mixer if it is metal or a heat proof bowl. You can also use a hand mixer. Pour carefully as this is very hot.
• Add the confectioners sugar to the hot mixture bit by bit, mixing at medium speed until smooth.
• The mixture will thicken as the powdered sugar is added.
• Add a small amount of very hot water (one teaspoon or tablespoon at a time) as needed until the frosting reaches a good consistency for spreading. Makes about 4-4.5 cups of frosting. When not using the frosting, place plastic wrap over the bowl.
• Frost the cooled cupcakes however you like! We used a 1M (large star) piping tip to create stars and rosettes.

Notes

You can use light brown or dark brown sugar for the cake and frosting in this recipe! Dark brown will give you a slightly deeper color and flavor. We enjoy them both!

Substitution for Cake Flour: Using all purpose flour (plain in UK) to make Cake Flour: For each cup of flour in a recipe, remove 2 Tablespoons of flour and replace with 2 Tablespoons cornstarch (cornflour in the UK).

Storing: These cupcakes can be left at room temperature (in an airtight container or under a cake dome) for a couple of days. After that, we recommend moving to the refrigerator for freshness.

However, if refrigerating, remove from the refrigerator a couple of hours before serving to allow the frosting a cupcakes to warm and soften.

 

 

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