Gluten Free Chocolate Salted Caramel Cupcakes!!

Today is my friends birthday! Happy Birthday Derek! Yaaaay! 

*ahem* 

What better way to celebrate a birthday than with cupcakes?! Unfortuantely my friend has a gluten intolerance so for a long while has only ever been able to eat those icky carboardy gluten free cupcakes that you buy in the supermarket *plegh*. That was until... he met me! Every year I send him cupcakes for his birthday... did you know you can send cupcakes in the post?? I found out a little while ago that there are a few products on the market like these very functional Postable Cupcake Pods or these Cakes-Away Postable Cupcake Boxes that look so pretty! I've used both with great success sending them to friends on random occassion because hey who doesn't like getting surprise cupcakes in the morning?? 

Anyway, birthday cupcakes, so every year I try to make him some delicious cupcakes for his birthday and a really awesome resource for gluten free cupcakes (and everything else!) is Gluten Free Canteen I've made so many things from there like these Double Chocolate Espresso Cupcakes and these Drunken Chocolate Cupcakes and so many others! All of them have been so delicious, in fact my non gluten free friends can't taste the difference that's how good they are!

Today I wanted to make something a bit different. I love salted caramel and I found a jar in the supermarket the other day and thought it would be perfect for the cupcakes. I've made Salted Caramel Cupcakes before that were a total hit so why not make a gluten free version to share with my dear friend? So using my go to resource I found these Chocolate Sundae Cupcakes which I adapted slightly to my purposes (also reducing the sugar a little) since I just wanted a really good chocolate cupcake base and they certainly didn't dissapoint! Rich, dark, perfectly moist and oh so chocolatey... delicious! Then I cut out a little hole in the top and filled with Salted Caramel Sauce and topped with more salted caramel flavoured buttercream and drizzled with even more salted caramel sauce and finally topped it off with a little square of chocolate just to set it over the top! (hey it is his birthday!)

Don't they look worthy of a celebration cupcake??

Salted Caramel Cupcakes oh my!

Browsing around the supermarket yesterday I came across this:

Oh my, I adore salted caramel there is just something about that salty sweet goodness that hits just the right spot! I mean look at it! Golden and thick and gooey, mmh... (yes, that spoon did go in my mouth right after that photo was taken)

So, as you can guess, I bought this wonderful pot of deliciousness and decided that the only decent thing to do with it, besides spooning it directly into my mouth, was to make cupcakes with it. I mean cupcakes are awesome, salted caramel is awesome so put them together and you have something extra awesome right? Right! 

I searched for some salted caramel cupcake recipes and boy were there many to choose from, should I go with Vanilla or Chocolate? How about double salted caramel? I actually tried out a few cupcake recipes but none seemed to hit the spot. One was a chocolate cupcake made with oil, I learned that I do not like oil in cupcakes they taste weird and have a funny texture, the other was a vanilla cupcake that just seemed to lack that wow factor I was after. Then I remembered these cupcakes from my first post that I adored. They were so chocolatey and rich and fudgy, perfect! They are quickly becoming my go-to chocolate cupcake.

Then onto the frosting, since I was using caramel I didn't really want to use plain old buttercream as it is so very sweet. I noticed that many of the recipes I was browsing used Swiss Meringue Buttercream but that had a heck of a lot of butter, but then I noticed once that had Italian Meringue Buttercream, it seemed much simpler than the Swiss kind, no whipping egg whites over a pan of simmering water.. yay! So I went with Italian. 

I am so glad Mr. Grad bought me a Kenwood Stand mixer for my birthday this year, oh boy do I love that machine and that man! I don't think you can really make this kind of frosting without one. It was my first time making this kind of frosting and it is a bit more involved than just whacking sugar and butter in a mixer but I followed this recipe by Annalise and it turned out perfectly. If you are struggling I totally suggest you to check out her step-by-step tutorial. Incidentally today I also learned how to make Marshmallow Fluff, now that is dangerous knowledge to have! 

So anyway back on track, cupcakes... chocolatey, fudgy cupcakes topped with a billowing cloud of caramel flavoured Italian meringue buttercream, drizzled with more salted caramel and finished off with a little chocolate shard! Heaven! These quickly got sent with Mr. Grad to work because, you know, its not a good idea to leave me alone with 12 of these babies! Everyone LOVED them. I tell ya I'm making that man look good! I mean... just look at them... who could resist?**

So without further ado, I present to you...