Guinness and Chocolate Cupcakes with Salted Caramel Frosting

Everyone needs cupcakes on their birthday, and I feel like a kid in elementary school bringing in cupcakes to work so everyone can celebrate another occasion. I think I’m going to need a birthday calendar to keep up with everyone’s birthdays (and obviously the calendar would have to include flavor preferences). So when I was told that a birthday was coming up and that the birthday person might like Guinness or more specifically car bomb cupcakes I decided to get a little greedy. Since I’ve already made car bomb cupcakes a few times and have written about them, I had to go with a different Guinness cupcake. I did a lot of research on recipes before I settled on a Guinness and chocolate cupcake with salted caramel. And then it would by my first shot at making caramel.

For Cupcakes

Makes 12 cupcakes

  • 2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 cup all purpose flour
  • 1 tsp. baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 1/2 stick melted butter
  • 1 tsp. vanilla extract
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1/2 a bottle of Guinness beer
  1. Preheat oven to 350 and line a cupcake tin with 12 liners
  2. In a large mixing bowl whist together cocoa powder, flour, baking soda and salt
  4. Divide the batter equally between muffin tins, filling each 3/4 full and bake for 18-20 minutes

For Frosting

Salted Caramel Sauce

    • 1 cup sugar
    • 1 Tbsp. water
    • 4 Tbsp unsalted butter
    • 1/2 cup heavy cream
    • Sea salt
    1. Combine the sugar and water over medium-high heat in a saucepan
    2. Stir until the sugar completely melts and starts to boil
    3. Let the sugar brown for just a minute, don’t let it get too dark though
    4. Once it’s ready, remove the pan from the heat and pour in the heavy cream, butter, and sea salt.  Be careful since it can steam and foam up a lot
    5. Add in salt to taste

    For Frosting

    • 1 stick of unsalted butter at room temperature
    • 4-5 cups powdered sugar
    • Salted caramel sauce
    1. Whip butter in mixer and add in powdered sugar one cup at a time
    2. Mix in salted caramel sauce until desired taste
    3. Decorate cupcakes

    I had some extra salted caramel left so I decided to drizzle over the top of the cupcakes to make them pretty.  The salted caramel was good but I’m thinking I let it cook just a tad bit too long because it had a slight bitter taste to it.  But when it was mixed with sugar and butter you couldn’t really taste it.  They seemed like another office hit.  I’ve got to keep them coming for the compliments!