Feeling sick of sugar and chocolate yet? I'm not, but that's because I can't eat it! I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter and enjoyed special time with your family and friends. We had a quiet Easter over at the Whimsical House.... pottering in the garden, relaxing on the deck, catching up with family and friends, lots of great food and a bit of painting - which turned disastrous. Visit me on Facebook to see what happened! I will tell that story in a bit more depth another day... because today I don't want to think or talk about it!

However, I do want to talk about these YUMMY Caramel Popcorn Cupcakes. They are a re-hash of an old recipe, but I just wanted to share them again with you because they were SO popular.

They make a great birthday cake or novelty cake for a "movie themed" party.

There are a few steps to making these, but it is a pretty easy cupcake to make and decorate, requiring only a medium baking skill. The finished effect is worth the little bit of effort you have to go to with making the different components.

To make your "popcorn" inspired cupcake papers, I simply bought a pack of red striped cupcake papers from this shop on EBAY. To get the popcorn logo I cut it out from these free printable cupcake wrappers HERE. I stuck the "popcorn" logo on the cupcakes after the cake had been cooked, just in case it melted off during the cooking process.

Caramel Popcorn Cupcakes

Prep Time: 45 min
Cook Time: 30 min
Makes: 12

Ingredients:

Caramel Butter Cake:

125g Butter
1 Tsp Vanilla Extract
1 Cup Firmly Packed Brown Sugar
2 Eggs
1 Tbsp Golden Syrup
1 Cup SR Flour
½ Tsp Cinnamon
½ Cup Milk
Salted Caramel Filling:
1 Cup Brown Sugar
3 Tbsp Water
½ Tin Condensed Milk
½ Tsp Salt
¼ Cup Icing Sugar

Butter Cream Icing:
(You will have extra icing – suitable to freeze)
250g Butter
250g Copha
1 Tsp Vanilla Essence
750g Icing Sugar (approx)
1 ½ Tbsp Pavlova Magic (you can omit this)
1/4 cup of water

1 Packet Caramel Corn

Instructions:

Salted Caramel

Place brown sugar, water & salt into a saucepan and simmer over a medium heat until mixture starts to darken and thicken.
Take off heat and add ½ tin of condensed milk &icing sugar and stir through. Place back on heat and simmer for 3 – 5 minutes –stirring constantly.
The mixture should be a thick runny consistency – if not add more icing sugar. Set aside to cool.

Caramel Butter Cake

Preheat oven to 170 degrees. Set out muffin papers in muffin tin.-
Beat butter, vanilla and sugar with mixer until light and fluffy.-
Beat in eggs one at a time; beat in golden syrup. Fold in sifted dry ingredients andmilk.-
Fill the cupcake papers half way and make an indent in the mixture. Spoon a teaspoon of salted caramel in the indent and place the rest of the mixture on top.-
Bake for about 25-30 mins. Set aside cupcake to cool.

Butter Cream

Soften copha in microwave until pliable. Be careful not to melt. Place both copha and butter into mixing bowl, add vanilla essence and beat for 1-2 minutes until combined.
Add icing sugar 1 cup at a time until you’re happy with the consistency. You may not need the whole 750g.
Add pavlova magic and water. Leave to mix for about 10 minutes.

Assembling

Ice cupcakes with butter cream icing and carefully place popcorn pieces over the icingto cover the top of the cupcake, trying to keep gaps to a minimum.
Use pieces of popcorn with dabs of icing on it to fill in gaps and create a uniformed top.