An experiment

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Who's saying what

Lactose intolerent?

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Okay let's do this.

It was my gurl Chloe's birthday this week so I decided to have a crack at a cupcake I'd been constructing in my head for months. I have very strong Opinions on cupcakes. Personally I'm not crazy about the overly twee roger dubuis sympathie replica watches cutesy cupcake new wave we're experiencing at the moment. It's not that I'm opposed to decorative cakery but it needs to taste good too and too many new wave cupcakes are just dry vanilla cake with aggressively sweet buttercreams piled into big tooth-aching 1M swirls.  And many cupcakes at bakeries cafes and the cupcakeries are just far too big cake softballs rather than the wee cake golfball I believe they should be.  The cupcake format is ideal when you want to throw down some balls-to-the-wall cakery at a party or someone else's house. They're small portable and don't require plates or knives or forks and it is fun to get stuck into the piping bags and star tips and there's ample opportunity to experiment with different cakes and icings.  

With that in mind I thought I'd pair one of my favourite chocolate cake recipes David Lebovitz' chocolate devils food cake with a dainty swirl dulce de leche. What is dulce de leche you ask? It's a kind of milk jam or caramelized milk candy or just about the best thing you ever did taste. They like it in Spain and in many South American countries so you can find it at Spanish grocers such as Casa Iberica on Johnson St in Fitzroy. But that's only if you're a bit soft. The hardcore take a tin of sweetened condensed milk remove the label put the tin in a large saucepan cover with water and bring to the boil. They then let that sucker simmer away at a decent clip for 3-4 hours. Yeah that's how I roll. I envisaged pert corrugated little swirls of caramel atop my dark little cakes.  I even Twittered my plans to beat a tablespoon of butter into the warm dulce de leche to cut down on stickiness when cupcake pro Sugadeaux gently reminded me that it's not the most pipeable of substances. Pish I thought. I can do this.

She was right of course. My star tip swirls quickly collapsed into barely ridged puddles and the grains of salt I trendily sprinkled over dissolved after seconds. I can tell you though that not one person cared about my odd looking little cakes capped with milk-tender slicks of caramel. I consider this experiment a success.

Salted Caramel Cupcakes
Adapted from David Lebovitz. Makes ~ 2 dozen.
4 1/2 tbsp cocoa powder 3/4 cup plain flour 1/4 tsp salt 1/2 tsp bicarb 1/8 tsp baking powder 60g butter softened 3/4 cup sugar 1 egg at room temperature 1/4 cup strong coffee 1/4 cup milk A tin of sweetened condensed milk Decent sea salt for sprinklingFirst remove the label from your tin of sweetened condensed milk. Place in a large saucepan and cover with water. Bring to the boil replica harry winston watch then reduce heat to a brisk simmer and boil for 3-4 hours topping up the water as necessary. Remove the tin and allow to cool.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Whisk together cocoa powder flour bicarb baking powder and salt in a medium bowl. Set aside. In a large bowl cream together the butter and sugar then add the egg. In a small bowl combine the milk and coffee. Add half the dry ingredients then half the liquid then the rest folding well after each addition.

Scoop into a mini cupcake tin lined with papers. I use a 1-tsp capacity cookie scoop to do this because I'm obsessed with cookie scoops and own many of them but most people use two spoons because they're normal and don't clutter their kitchen with cookie scoops. Bake for 10-15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the centre cake comes out clean. Cool on a rack then ice with a slick of dulce de leche. You can use a piping bag audemars piguet watch like I did but be aware it won't make any difference. Sprinkle with sea salt then try not to eat them all at once.