Caramel Cupcakes With Caramel Buttercream Frosting: These easy caramel cupcakes from scratch are topped with caramel icing and they are bursting with caramel flavor!
Cupcake recipes are a favorite dessert at our house, but this caramel cupcake recipe is extra fun with that caramel-swirled icing on top! It looks impressive, and it’s actually very simple to create. (Similar to our Biscoff cupcakes!)
Why You’ll Love These Caramel Cupcakes
If you’ve been following the blog for a while, you know that around here we have no shortage of party ideas! Whether it’s for a special event like a birthday baking party or your favorite holiday, or just an excuse to spend time with family and friends, you’ll find lots of yummy party food ideas here on the blog to inspire you.
But in my humble opinion, every party needs cake (because I know I’m not the only one who loves sweet treats)! Big, multi-level cakes are fun but they take a lot of time, and a fair bit of skill, to put together.
Cupcake recipes, however? They are cute, tasty, and super easy!
You’ll especially love these cookies and cream cupcakes and these pink champagne cupcakes.
The best cupcakes are the ones that look and taste super impressive but secretly are super simple to make…and that’s where these caramel cupcakes come in. I think these might just be the best caramel cupcakes you’ll ever make!
You’ll also love these these red velvet cookie dough cupcakes if you’re looking to make a variety!
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Ingredients
This caramel cupcake recipe uses simple, everyday ingredients
- ¾ cup white sugar
- ½ cup brown sugar
- ½ cup unsalted butter, softened
- 2 large eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- a pinch of salt
- ½ cup whole milk
Ingredients for Caramel Buttercream Frosting
- ½ cup unsalted butter, softened
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- ½ cup caramel sauce
How to Make Caramel Cupcakes
- Heat oven to 350 F / 180 C and either spray your muffin cups with non-stick cooking spray or line them with cupcake liners and set aside.
- In a large bowl, combine sugar, brown sugar, softened butter and vanilla extract. Cream the butter and sugar mixture with a handheld electric mixer (or beat with a stand mixer on medium speed), scraping the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed, till the mixture is light and fluffy and everything is incorporated well.
- Add the eggs into the butter mixture one at a time, mixing after each addition.
- In a medium bowl, add in the flour, baking powder, and salt; mix and set aside.
- Alternate adding the dry ingredients and the ½ cup of milk to the butter/sugar/egg mixture, beginning and ending with dry ingredients. Mix just until combined after each addition- you want everything to be incorporated well, but avoid over-mixing.
- Divide batter evenly between each of the paper liners, filling each one ¾ full. Bake for 22-25 mins or till a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean and the cupcake is beginning to turn golden brown on top.
- Once baked, remove the cupcakes from the muffin tray and let them cool down completely on a wire rack while you make the frosting.
How to Make Caramel Buttercream Frosting
- In a large mixing bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter and sugar together on medium-high speed till it’s smooth and creamy.
- Add 1-2 tablespoon of caramel to the butter and sugar and beat it again till it’s incorporated well.
Note – you can add more or less caramel depending on the taste and color you want (more caramel will create a deeper caramel flavor and color).
How to Create the Buttercream Swirl
- Take plastic wrap and lay it on your working table; now carefully spread a thick line of caramel buttercream frosting down the center.
- Next to the line of buttercream, make another, thinner line with the caramel sauce.
- Fold the plastic wrap over the buttercream and caramel sauce, ensuring both ends are twisted closed tightly.
- Cut open one end of the plastic wrap and insert this wrapped frosting in the piping bag (or ziplock bag- see FAQs), making sure the open side is towards the large open star tip nozzle.
- Use this to create a swirl of icing on top of the caramel cupcake and enjoy! If you need a bit of extra guidance on how to pipe a swirl of frosting on each cupcake, watch this video.
Substitutions
These caramel cupcakes are delicious just the way they are, but if you are looking for substitutions we have a few ideas for you.
- Caramel Sauce– you could use dulce de leche instead of caramel sauce, or make your own homemade caramel sauce recipe.
- Cupcakes– if you have a box mix for vanilla cupcakes, you could easily use that in place of the cupcakes from scratch in this recipe. OR you could use chocolate cupcakes (from a box or from scratch) instead!
- Frosting– you could replace the buttercream frosting in this recipe with your favorite Swiss meringue buttercream recipe and swirl it with the caramel sauce to keep that caramel-like flavor!
Salted Caramel Cupcakes
Craving a salty treat? You can easily turn these cupcakes into salted caramel cupcakes by sprinkling some sea salt on top of the cupcakes when you are done icing them! And if you are a really big fan of that salty flavor, you can add a pinch of salt to your caramel sauce to make it more of a “salted caramel sauce” too!
Storage
Store your frosted caramel cupcakes in an airtight container in the fridge for up to a week.
Expert Tips and FAQs
Yes, you sure can! If you do use salted butter, you can omit the “pinch of salt” called for in the recipe (unless you are going for more of a salted caramel flavor).
If you have a disposable piping bag or want to purchase them to have on hand, then great! If you don’t though, I’ve had fairly good success with using freezer bags. Taste of Home has a detailed tutorial on their website that explains it nicely!
Buttercream frosting that’s made with butter should be refrigerated.
If you are hoping to make these ahead and store them at room temperature, we would recommend you store the cupcakes (unfrosted) in an airtight container at room temperature and the buttercream in an airtight container in the fridge.
When you are ready to frost the cupcakes, let the buttercream warm up a bit and beat again until it is light and fluffy and then frost away!
Related Recipes
If you loved these Caramel Cupcakes with Caramel cream frosting, you’ll also want to try our Chocolate Peanut Butter Salted Caramel Toffee Cake and our Caramel Apple Dump Cake!
Or if you’re looking for a super fun, wintery vibe for your cupcakes, see how we took a simple herb to make a winter cupcake that is absolutely adorable!
Recipe
Caramel Cupcakes with Caramel Buttercream Frosting
Ingredients
Cupcakes
- ¾ cup white sugar
- ½ cup brown sugar
- ½ cup unsalted butter softened at room temperature
- 2 large eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- A pinch of salt
- ½ cup whole milk
Caramel Buttercream Frosting Swirl
- ½ cup unsalted butter softened at room temperature
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- ½ cup caramel sauce
Instructions
Cupcakes:
- Heat oven to 350 F / 180 C and either spray your muffin cups with non-stick cooking spray or line them with cupcake liners and set aside.
- In a large bowl, combine sugar, brown sugar, softened butter and vanilla extract. Cream butter and sugar mixture with a handheld electric mixer (or beat with a stand mixer on medium speed), scraping the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed, till the mixture is light and fluffy and everything is incorporated well.
- Add the eggs into the butter mixture one at a time, mixing after each addition.
- In a medium bowl, add in the flour, baking powder, and salt; mix and set aside.
- Alternate adding the dry ingredients and the ½ cup of milk to the butter/sugar/egg mixture, beginning and ending with dry ingredients. Mix just until combined after each addition- you want everything to be incorporated well, but avoid over mixing.
- Divide batter evenly between each of the paper liners, filling each one ¾ full. Bake for 22-25 mins or till a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean and the cupcake is beginning to turn golden brown on top.
- Once baked, remove the cupcakes from the muffin tray and let them cool down completely on a wire rack while you make the frosting.
Caramel Buttercream Frosting:
- In a large mixing bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter and sugar together on medium-high speed till it's smooth and creamy.
- Add 1-2 tablespoons of caramel to the butter and sugar and beat it again till it's incorporated well.Note – you can add more or less caramel depending on the taste and color you want (more caramel will create a deeper caramel flavor and color).
Swirls:
- Take plastic wrap and lay it on your working table; now carefully spread a thick line of caramel buttercream frosting down the center.
- Next to the line of buttercream, make another, thinner line with the caramel sauce.
- Fold the plastic wrap over the buttercream and caramel sauce, ensuring both ends are twisted closed tightly.
- Cut open one end of the plastic wrap and insert this wrapped frosting in the piping bag (or ziplock bag- see FAQs), making sure the open side is towards the large open star tip nozzle.
- Use this to create a swirl of icing on top of the caramel cupcake and enjoy!
Notes
Nutrition
Nutritional information is based on third-party calculations and should be considered estimates. Actual nutritional content will vary with brands used, measuring methods, portion sizes and more.
Azure says
These turned out beautifully. We used our own duck eggs which made them ultra rich, dense and moist. Piping the swirled icing turned out great. That tip with the cling wrap worked.
Jessica says
Hello! I’m so glad that you liked this caramel cupcake recipe and the tip for the icing worked for you too! Thank you for sharing!
Marie says
This recipe was a big hit.
Jessica says
That’s so wonderful to hear, Marie! Thank you so much for sharing that you loved these cupcakes!