salted caramel

Tres Leches Cupcakes with Salted Dolce de Leche Topping

May 17, 2017

Do you love dry, crumbly cakes? Well then, this cake is not for you. Tres leches cake is one of the most moist and spongy cakes I have ever had.

Tres leches is a classic Southern American cake made by soaking the cake in a mixture of three different milks: evaporated milk, condensed milk, and heavy cream.

But there is actually a forth milk in these cupcakes in the form of the dolce de leche topping, which is essentially a caramel made from sweetened milk. There are lots of ways to make dolce de leche, but my favorite (because it requires little to no babysitting) is the slow-cooker method. You place jars of sweetened condensed milk in a water bath in a slow cooker and let them cook on low for 8 hours. When they come out you have a delicious, caramel sauce.

When I made these tres leches cupcakes, I started with the topping since that would take literally all day. But I went on with my day (in this case, work), and came home to find all the hard work done for me.

The cupcakes aren’t quite so easy, in that you actually have to lift a finger. The recipe is very similar to a yellow cake, but I added a touch of cinnamon and nutmeg for some extra flavor.

Start by creaming together the butter and sugar. Then add the egg yolks in one at a time. Whisk the egg whites up separately until they are nice and fluffy. Alternate mixing in the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients until you have a nice smooth batter. Then fold in the egg whites. This will make sure your cupcakes are nice and airy.

Once the cupcakes have cooked and cooled, whisk together your milks: evaporated milk, condensed milk, and heavy cream. Pour that (carefully) over the tops of your cupcakes.

Once your cupcakes have soaked in all that milk you can determine if they need a little more. It may feel like you are adding a lot of the milk, but I promise they will soak it right up.

When they are all milked out, you can top them with the dolce de leche topping. Just slather that stuff on the top. You really can’t go overboard with it.

And because caramel needs a little something extra, sprinkle some sea salt on top and thank me later. All that sweetness needs something to balance it out.

These cupcakes were to. die. for. The cake is super moist but not soggy. It’s also nice and light and airy. The dolce de leche is the perfect topping because the cake isn’t overly flavorful on it’s own. The kiss of sea salt at the very end just puts it over the top. You should probably charge your friends and family $4 a pop for these cupcakes, because the only other place you will find a cupcake this good is in a fancy bakery.

But if cupcakes aren’t your thing, you can make this same recipe in square pan and cut out slices. There is truly no wrong way to eat tres leches cake.

[amd-yrecipe-recipe:161]

Salted Caramel Pumpkin Apple Bunt Cake

October 19, 2016

If there is one thing you can’t say “no” to, it’s a hungry pregnant woman. At least, I can’t. If you are creating a human life, I will make you any food you want. That’s why when my 6-month pregnant friend and co-worker asked me to recreate a muffin she loved, I had to give it a shot.

One morning she called me over to her desk and told me to try the muffin she picked up for breakfast. It was a pumpkin muffin, but it was stuffed with apples, and had some sort of caramel glaze. Sounds delicious, right? It was! So I took a couple notes and told her I would come up a recipe for her to try.

I started with a pumpkin base, which I adapted from my pumpkin bar and pumpkin bread recipe. To that, I added some apples that I sauteed in butter, sugar, and cinnamon until then were soft. I folded the apples into the cake batter and then poured it into a bunt cake pan. I could have made these muffins or cupcakes, but I thought a bunt cake would be more fun. Plus, I had just bought this bunt cake pan so I wanted to take it for a spin.

Once it had come out of the oven and was cooled, I poured over some caramel sauce. I actually used those caramel candies you would buy for dipping apples into, but if I had the time (and the cream), I would have made my own caramel sauce to pour on top.

While the sauce was still a bit sticky, I sprinkled on some sea salt and pepitas for an extra crunch.

Then I took the cake to my friend for a taste test. The verdict? It was good! I would have never paired pumpkin and apples, but it really worked! It was like apple pie filling meets a pumpkin cake. It was the perfect Fall flavor combination. And the salted caramel just sent it over the top. Literally the icing on the cake.

[amd-yrecipe-recipe:86]

Salted Caramel Thumbprint Cookies

November 4, 2015

Remember when I made the salted caramel sauce a few weeks ago? I wanted to find as many ways to use it as possible so I turned to one of my favorite cookies, the thumbprint cookie.

When I was a kid, I loved chocolate thumbprint cookies! My mom would put a package of them in my lunch box every day. It has been years since I had one, and I had actually never made a thumbprint cookie until now.

Did you know they are actually really easy to make? Since I had never made them, I expected that they would be much more complicated. In reality, the dough it is just four ingredients and all you have to do is roll it into a ball and bake. Once they come out of the oven, you press your thumb (or a tablespoon – they are hot!) into the center to create a well for whatever goodness you want pour in there, whether its chocolate or salted caramel.

Since I had the left over salted caramel sauce, that is what I used to fill in the thumbprint. You could also melt some soft caramel candies and spoon that into the center. But I highly recommend waiting to do this step until the cookies are completely cool. The caramel will run right off the cookie if it is too warm.

The finishing touch is to add a touch more sea salt to really bring out the flavor. These cookies are very sweet, so the salty balance is a nice touch!

I highly recommend these cookies for any of your upcoming holiday parties. They are a crowd pleaser! Just ask my coworkers!

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Salted Caramel Apple Bars

September 28, 2015

If I could recommend one Fall activity, it would be apple picking! We went a couple years ago, and it was so much fun to be up in the mountains, surrounded by apple trees, and picking your own apples. The downside (which is hardly a bad thing), is that you will have tons and tons of apples and no idea what to do with them!

Well here’s an idea! Salted caramel apple bars! They taste like apple pie with a hint of salty-sweet caramel. And by that I mean, DELICIOUS!

The recipe is essentially a blondie recipe with apples baked in and caramel sauce swirled into the batter.

The result, as I mentioned, is a lot like apple pie! But, if you are anything like me, you like the crust more than the apple part of the apple pie. So these bars have just the right amount of apple for me.

And if want even more caramel sauce, just drizzle any left over caramel over the top. You can’t go wrong with extra caramel.

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Salted Caramel Sauce

September 25, 2015

Sometimes I forget how easy it is to make homemade caramel. Caramel sauce to caramel candies, the process of making any form of caramel is so easy and so delicious. This salted caramel sauce was a happy byproduct of a recipe I will be sharing with you later, but has proven to be a handy addition to everything from vanilla ice cream to apple slices.

If you are planning any sort of gathering this Fall, this would be an excellent addition to your dessert. Making brownies? Add salted caramel sauce. Cheesecake? Add salted caramel sauce. Have a clean spoon you don’t know what to do with? Use it to eat this stuff out of the jar. Yeah….its pretty freaking delicious.

Also, this exact same recipe would make some wonderful salted caramel candies you could give away as a party favor of holiday treat. All you have to do is let the sugar boil a little bit longer until it gets to a soft ball stage. Here is a handy chart to figure out how long to cook sugar to get it to different stages of caramel.

What would you put salted caramel sauce on?

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