Fluffy Chocolate Cupcakes with Caramel Cream Cheese Icing

Hello all!  I have some delicious chocolate cupcakes with caramel cream cheese icing to share with you today.  They're nice and simple to make; I whipped these up for a work colleague's birthday.

Recipe adapted from: How Sweet It Is
Ingredients - cupcakes
1 egg
140g brown sugar
145g (1/2 cup) milk
135g (1/2 cup + 1 tbsp) cream
125g butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp sour cream
175g flour
15g cocoa powder
1 1/4 tsp bicarb soda

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 175C (350F).

2. Whisk egg and sugar until smooth and combined.

3. Melt the butter.

4. Add the milk, cream, melted butter, vanilla and sour cream to the egg mixture and stir until combined.

5. Add the flour, cocoa powder and bicarb to the batter and stir until combined.  Sift the cocoa powder for best results.

6. Spoon the batter into cupcake tins lined with patty pans.  I always leave quite a lot of space between the batter and the top of the patty pans because I am paranoid about overflowing cupcakes.

7. Bake for about 15 minutes or until an inserted skewer comes out clean.

8. Let the cupcakes cool before icing them.

Caramel Cream Cheese Icing
Ingredients: 400g cream cheese, 1 cup caramel (recipe here)

Method: Simply beat the cream cheese until soft and fluffy (I use the K beater on my Kitchenaid), then add the caramel and beat until smooth and combined.

This icing is easy to make and great paired with chocolate cakes or cupcakes; it works well when piped, as shown on the cupcakes here.  You can use more or less caramel to suit your tastes, even add some vanilla essence or cream if you so desire.

I also made a couple of whoopie-pie-like morsels using an old dome-indented tin (not sure what this is called a gem scone tin, thank you Diane!  I believe my great-grandmother gave it to me) and sandwiched the domes together with the icing.