Chocolate and Caramel Bonfire Cupcakes
Want a spark for bonfire night? Then these caramel filled chocolate cupcakes are perfect for you! Easy to make and even easier on the eye with their bold sugar flames.
KEY DETAILS
Prep Time: 1 hour 10 minutes
Cook Time: 35 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour 45 minutes
Yield Quantity: 12
Special Equipment: cupcake tin, stand or hand mixer, cupcake liners, piping bags, plastic bags and a rolling pin
INGREDIENTS
Cupcakes:
125g salted butter
175g caster sugar
2 eggs
60g plain flour
50g cocoa powder
3 tbsp milk
1 tsp baking powder
100g Mikado sticks (dark or milk)
Caramel:
62g double cream
3 tbsp unsalted butter
125g granulated sugar
Chocolate Ganache:
87g dark chocolate
62g double cream
Sugar Shards:
Red, yellow and orange boiled sweets
(2 or 3 each)
DIRECTIONS
Sponge
Preheat your oven to 180C.
Line your cupcake tin with 12 cupcake cases.
In your electric mixer, cream your butter and sugar together on medium speed until it produces a light, pale and fluffy consistency.
Whilst this is mixing, break both eggs into a bowl and beat with a fork until nicely combined.
Once the eggs are beaten, combine the flour, cocoa powder and baking powder into a bowl, ready for later use.
Add the beaten eggs, a little at a time, leaving some time between each add otherwise your mixture may curdle.
Once all the eggs have been added, take your flour, cocoa powder and baking powder and add it to the mixer a ⅓ at a time. When adding the flour, maintain a low speed so that you don’t knock too much air out.
Grab two spoons and divide your cake mix into the individual cupcake cases as equally as possible.
Bake in the oven for 15-17 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
When cooked, place on a cooling rack and set aside to cool. Meanwhile, make your caramel centre.
Caramel:
Place the sugar into a small sauce pan on medium heat, allow to heat and stir occasionally making sure not to let the sugar stick to the bottom of the pan or go up the sides too much. This will take between 7-10 minutes, don’t be tempted to turn the heat up as your sugar will burn and could ruin your saucepan.
As your sugar starts to melt, it will begin to turn a golden colour, as this happens, get your 6 tbsp of butter ready to add.
Continue to stir the sugar while adding the butter, it will bubble up slightly but keep it on the heat and stir until well combined.
Once the butter has been added and mixed together, add the double cream. Again, this will make the caramel bubble and rise when added, but continue to stir and allow it to thicken.
Take off the heat and place in a bowl to cool. Whilst cooling, make your chocolate ganache.
Chocolate Ganache:
Pour the double cream into a small saucepan on medium heat.
Place your chocolate in a heatproof bowl, and once the cream begins to simmer, pour it over the chocolate and stir gently until all the chocolate has melted. Make sure the chocolate is well combined and there are no lumps.
Leave to cool slightly. When it begins to thicken around the edges, whisk with either a hand whisk or an electric mixer until it has thickened further and is still light and aerated.
Set aside for use when assembling. Finally make the sugar shards.
Sugar shards:
Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper and set your oven to 150C
Separate your sweets into red, orange and yellow as these are the only colours you will need to make your shards.
Grab a ziplock bag and place all your red sweets into it and use a rolling pin to crush them into small pieces, recommend using 3-4 sweets per colour.
Repeat this step with the yellow and orange sweets.
Once all the sweets have been crushed, place on the baking tray, equally spaced apart so the colours don’t melt together in the oven.
Put in the oven for 5-7 minutes or until all the pieces look melted, keep an eye on the oven otherwise your sweets might burn! Take out of the oven and leave aside to cool. Now it’s time to assemble!
Assembly:
Collect your cooled chocolate ganache and caramel, if either has become too thick, you can loosen them in the microwave or in a saucepan on a very low heat. Be careful not to loosen them too much, otherwise they will be difficult to pipe. Once they are at the right consistency, place the caramel in a piping bag and set the ganache aside.
To fill your cupcakes with caramel, cut a deep hole in the centre of your cupcake and place the off cuts to the side as you will need them again.
Pipe the caramel about ¾ of the way up and then place the offcut back into the cupcake so it closes up the hole.
Repeat with remaining cupcakes.
Once this is done, collect your chocolate ganache and spread a generous amount on top of each cupcake, starting from the centre and filling out from there.
Break up your Mikado sticks into small pieces, small enough so they can sit nicely on the top of your cupcake.
Do the same with your sugar shards, if you can, break them in such a way that they look like flames.
Push the Mikado sticks into the top of your cupcake forming a triangle and then push the shards around the sticks to create the effect of a bonfire.
TOP TIPS
Make the caramel and the ganache a day before to save time on prepping. Bring them back to room temperature by leaving them out for 2 hours before using.
Pretzel sticks are a good substitute for if you can't find Mikado Sticks.
