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Toffee Crunch Cupcake

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Toffee Crunch Cupcake with Caramel Frosting ~ Grab your toffee crunch in a cupcake crumb with a little caramel frosting dipped in some chocolate and rimmed with chocolate covered toffee bits.  Its  decadence meets gluttony-but should a cupcake be anything else but that?

Toffee Crunch Cupcake

Toffee Crunch Cupcakes

If you haven’t noticed by now, I don’t have a subtle hand when it comes to cupcake decorating. I like my cupcakes loud, obnoxious, over stuffed, overfilled, and over frosted-basically over the top. Which is funny because that is totally the opposite of me?

When I say opposite, I’m not a loud a person, I’m about as a loud as 5 foot tall person and cat pieced together can be. I’m definitely not obnoxious, unless I’m playing Scrabble, then yes; I’m obnoxious and hate to lose to a word like qi. (And, Matt, if you’re reading, I still have never heard you or anyone for that matter use it or reference it unless it is to rack in some tiling points).

As for the over frosted-WAY not me. I’m so simplistic. My wardrobe consists of two pairs of beloved holey jeans, tank tops and flip flops, and a skirt here and there. For work it’s an unissued uniform. You will find me in a black dress, black cardigan and black heels. Really it’s not so bad; it’s a bit awkward at first that is until you explain to your boss, “Yes, I did go home. I just prefer to not to burn through my time worrying about things like whether or not my blouse matches my pants or if I just wore this outfit a week ago”. Aside from that I find shopping incredibly overrated. That is unless it’s for kitchen tools or food props . . . then by all means, Sur la Table and eBay are my money tossing addiction.

About the only thing I have in common with my loud cupcake is not being able to get enough of them. Seriously. I went a bit crazy this weekend baking after a full week of no-bake desserts.

So get ready for a serious week of eats!

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Toffee Crunch Cupcakes

Yield: Makes 12 cupcakes

Ingredients:

Cupcake

  • 1 cup (4.5 ounces) all purpose flour
  • 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (7.3 ounces) sugar
  • 1/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons (1.5 ounces) SCHARFFEN BERGER Unsweetened Natural Cocoa Powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted and warm
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • 2 tablespoon instant coffee granules (recommended: Starbucks Via)
  • 1/2 cup hot coffee
  • 1/2 cup chocolate covered toffee bits

Caramel Frosting

  • 5 large egg whites
  • 11/2 cup granulated sugar
  • 4 sticks unsalted butter, diced and softened
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla
  • 1/3 cup caramel sauce (click here for a homemade caramel recipe)

Chocolate Dipping Sauce

  • 2/3 cups dark chocolate
  • 2 tablespoons heavy cream
  • 4 tablespoons powdered sugar, sifted
  • 5-8 tablespoons water, warm

Directions:

Preparation

Position a rack in the lower third of the oven. Heat the oven to 350 degrees.

Cupcake

In a large bowl, combine and mix together flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking soda and salt. Add in butter, eggs, and vanilla and beat for one minute. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add the instant coffee granules and hot coffee, beat until batter is smooth, about 20-30 seconds. The batter will be thin enough to pour. Divide it evenly among the lined cups. Bake 18-22 minutes just until a toothpick inserted into a few of the cupcakes comes out clean. Set the pan on a rack to cool. Frost the cupcakes when they are completely cool. Store and serve at room temperature.

TIP: For light tender cupcakes, spoon flour and cocoa lightly into measuring cups (instead of dipping the cups into the flour or cocoa) and then sweep the measures level without tapping or shaking them.

Caramel Frosting

  1. Combine egg whites and sugar in a bowl placed over simmering water. Bring mixture to 150 degrees F while whisking constantly.
  2. Transfer mixture to stand mixer bowl, fitted with a whisk attachment and beat on medium speed until mixture cools and doubles in volume.
  3. Add butter in one piece at a time, mixing to incorporate after each addition. The mixture may appear clumpy and almost curdled looking-this is normal. Keep mixing and it will become even and smooth again. Add salt and vanilla and mix to combine. Add caramel sauce and mix to combine.

Chocolate Dipping Sauce

Place chocolate and heavy cream in a bowl over simmering water. Let chocolate and cream sit for 2-3 minutes to melt without stirring. Then slowly stir mixture to combine. Add powdered sugar and mix to combine. Add water one tablespoon at a time, mixing after each addition until pouring consistency is reached. Set aside and let sauce cool to warm.

To assemble cupcake

To frost the cupcakes: Fill a pastry bag fitted with a large round tip and start piping from the outside working in to the center to create one even layer. Freeze cupcakes for 20 minutes before dipping in warm chocolate sauce, so that the frosting does not melt. Remove cupcakes and dip in warm chocolate sauce, and then rim with chocolate covered toffee bits.  Return cupcakes to freezer for five minutes for chocolate to set. Remove from freezer and finish piping frosting on top.

A few notes:

  • The cupcake can be made a day in advance. For the frosting, use homemade caramel for a deeper flavor. For a quick and simple tutorial to making homemade caramel sauce click here. The frosting can be made seven days in advance and then brought to room temperature for piping consistency. The cupcake can be fully assembled the night before and refrigerated.
  • The cupcake flavor pairing and combination is mine. The chocolate cupcake portion is an Alice Medrich recipe. The adaptations I made: I added a half cup of hot coffee in place of the hot water portions. (Side note: last time I made this recipe I added Starbucks Via coffee to it. This time I wanted just a hint of the coffee something a little less strong that espresso granules). I also added a ½ cup of chocolate covered toffee bits (found in the baking section of the grocery store) into the batter.
  • As always, I highly recommend Scharffen Berger’s Unsweetened Natural Cocoa Powder. It’s the best on the market and will make a huge difference in your baking results in terms of flavor.

Chocolate Cupcake portion adapted from Alice Medrich for Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker

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Comments

  1. Love them! what tip do you use for the topping?? beautiful!!

    • Avatar for Naomi Robinson

      Naomi replied: — June 11th, 2013 @ 7:38 am

      Hi Martha – Wilton’s 2D

  2. Can you taste the coffee? Is there a substitute for the coffee? (One of the people I’m baking for cannot stand even a little bit of coffee flavor.) Thanks!

  6. Hey Naomi,

    I have a blog called My Year of Cupcakes. I featured these amazing cupcakes on Day 4. Here’s the link in case you’d like to see it.
    http://myyearofcupcakes.wordpress.com/2013/08/04/day-4-toffee-crunch-cupcakes/
    It also won the Weekly Winner spot for Week 1 (http://myyearofcupcakes.wordpress.com/2013/08/07/weekly-winner-1/), so it’ll compete on August 31st for the Monthly Competition.

    Thanks for the recipe!

  7. The frosting was tricky for me, my kitchen isn’t stocked like it should be so I had to make do with what I had.. aka no stand mixer (so sad) and no double boiler.. however this is the smoothest frosting I’ve ever had.. I love the consistency. I did add more coffee flavor, but only because I REALLY love coffee and paired with toffee.. well.. that’ll blow your mind. Awesome recipe.

  10. Hi, for the caramel frosting, you wrote 11/2 cup of sugar. Did you mean 1 and 1/2 cups OR 1/2 cup of sugar? Please let me know, thanks!

    • Avatar for Naomi Robinson

      Maryann replied: — December 23rd, 2013 @ 7:46 pm

      Nevermind! Just read back on the comments and found my answer. Going to make them for Christmas (in 2 days, woohoo!). Definitely excited to try these! :)

  11. Hi!! I used this recipe loosely to make these cupcakes! They’re so pretty!! I did make the caramel frosting exactly as you instructed, but a day in advance. I let it come to room temp before piping. I found that it separated though. Any thoughts on why??

  12. This really looks lovely and delish, however, 4sticks of butter for frosting? Can’t this be made less fattening?

  16. Hello, amazing recipe. Just curious…for frosting is it confectioners sugar or regular sugar? Thank you so much!!

  18. I took this recipe on as my project for last night. Doubled the recipe and got 2.5 dozen cupcakes. They came out amazing! (Although they don’t look as amazing as the one in your photo because I am not so good at piping frosting…. Still an amateur lol) but anyway, I followed just about everything as written except I replaced the hot coffee with hot water and instant coffee with espresso powder (halved the amount) I also followed the homemade caramel sauce recipe for the frosting and was proud of myself because I’ve never tried to make caramel but it came out perfect. Overall love the recipe and I will make it again someday I’m sure!!

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  22. This piece of content seems very interesting. I’ll definitely try this recipe and will share my feedback with you!

  23. When do u add instant coffee? Do u put the toffee bits in the cupcakes or just on the chocolate?

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  32. I tried this recipe for Easter and my co-workers……they absolutely LOVED them. The only change I made was take the extra caramel sauce and drizzle over the top of the frosting on top.
    These cupcakes are the best

  35. yummy

    I love toffee cupcakes try chocolate toffee cupcakes
    (1 like = 1 toffee cupcake)

  36. BEST CUPCAKE I’VE EVER HAD IN MY LIFE. I MADE HUNDREDS OF THESE (EXACT RECIPE) FOR MY SISTERS WEDDING AND HAD DOZENS OF PEOPLE TELL ME THE SAME THING – BEST IN THEIR LIVES. I ALSO MADE A CAKE OUT OF THIS RECIPE FOR my sons first birthday. absolutely delicious, i’m so lucky to have foudn this recipe

Naomi Robinson

Avatar for Naomi RobinsonWelcome to my cozy corner where baking meets random thoughts and musings. I’m a self-taught baker sharing all things sweet (and some savory—okay, and cocktails) with a whisk in one hand and a camera in the other. More about Naomi »

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