Caramel Cupcakes with Coffee Icing Two Ways
This is a quick one-bowl Caramel Cupcake recipe with Coffee Icing Two Ways. The coffee flavoured icing blends well with a background caramel taste from the cupcakes. I have two options to ice the cupcakes, a quick stir together and runnier icing if you are in a hurry, or a classic buttercream coffee icing if you fancy piping the top of the cupcakes instead.
Coffee can be a natural flavour enhancer, used in many recipes from steak rubs to chocolate cake, it adds a deep background flavouring but one that cannot always be determined as coffee itself, in sweet or savoury dishes.
Caramel Cake:
The dark muscovado sugar adds a wonderful caramel note to the cake. In the cake part of the recipe, you can’t taste the coffee, it just adds a little something. This is helpful if you are serving non-coffee lovers and children. Or you may prefer to use a decaf coffee or omit the coffee completely from the cake recipe and focus the coffee flavour in the icing.
Coffee Icing Two Ways:
I made the icing two ways one slightly thicker if you wanted to pipe a swirl and one runnier if you were in a hurry and just wanted a quick spoon on and set icing. Both icings are lovely and sometimes different situations will determine the use of different methods.
I always like to have choices for my friends and family. So whenever I am serving adults and children cake I keep the icing separate. This makes everyone happy, those who prefer just cake and those who love icing. I individually ice the cakes with as much or as little icing people enjoy. This is also a great idea for parents who want to limit the amount of sugar the children have. An added bonus is that it is also a good way to save the cake, as any uneaten cake that hasn’t been iced can be kept in a tin for 2 days.
Serving Ideas:
This recipe is lovely if you are having friends round for a meal and want to skip dessert and go straight to coffee and cake.
Perfect if you are hosting a book club at home.
Or over a weekend when you know people may be passing, you can fill a cake tin very quickly with a lovely treat.
Coffee-loving students at uni will enjoy these on a visit home or it is quick and easy to make in halls.
- 125g butter softened
- 100g caster sugar
- 75g dark muscovado sugar, squash out the lumps
- 175g self-raising flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 2 eggs
- 62.5ml milk
- 2 heaped teaspoons instant coffee powder
- Coffee Icing
- Use whichever icing recipe you prefer, one will be runny to spread over the cupcake and the other can be piped to house a chocolate-covered coffee bean. This is optional you make want a big buttercream swirl or just the flat runny icing.
- Coffee Butter Cream
- The recipe below only makes a small amount of icing enough for the small dollop shown in the photo. For full coverage with a big swirl triple the recipe.
- 25g softened butter
- 85g icing sugar sifted
- 1 teaspoon coffee powder
- ½ teaspoon milk
- Spreadable Coffee Icing for 12 cupcakes
- 25g softened butter
- 85g icing sugar sifted
- 1 teaspoon coffee powder
- 1 tablespoon milk
- Optional:
- Chocolate covered coffee beans
- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
- Line a 12 hole cupcake tin with cupcake paper cases.
- In a medium bowl add the eggs and coffee to a bowl and beat until the coffee has dissolved.
- Add all the ingredients and beat until just combined.
- Fill each cupcake ¾ of the way up the case.
- Bake for 15 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.
- Optional Icing
- While the cupcakes are baking make the icing:
- Decide how you would like to top the cupcakes with a combination of spreadable icing or a buttercream swirl.
- If you would like both make a batch of each or triple the butter icing recipe for a bigger swirl.
- Buttercream Icing method:
- Add the icing sugar and butter to a medium-sized bowl.
- Add the milk into a small cup and microwave til warm for a few seconds.
- Dilute the coffee in the warm milk and add the coffee milk to the icing and butter bowl.
- Spreadable Coffee Icing Method
- As above this will just be runnier due to the amount of milk you have added.
- To thin or thicken the recipe add more coffee milk or icing sugar.
Chocolate coffee shaped beans can be found in the supermarket baking aisle.
Icing:
To thin the icing recipes add more coffee milk.
To thicken the icing add more icing sugar.
Taste the icing if you want a more intense coffee taste dilute a little more coffee.