It was Dean’s birthday and I wanted to surprise him by making some cakes. It’s not very often I can surprise him as he works from home so I took full of the advantage of the fact that he was away for the weekend. He loves sticky toffee pudding and when we go out he nearly always has it for dessert.
I thought this was a great way to put all the flavours of sticky toffee pudding into the icing. I went for a plain sponge in the end as I didn’t want to make the cake too rich to eat, and this worked really well with the icing. Dean arrived back from his weekend away and absolutely loved his birthday surprise!
Sticky Toffee Cupcakes
Ingredients
- 200 grams caster sugar
- 200 grams margarine/unsalted butter
- 4 eggs beaten
- 200 grams self-raising flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 2 tbsp milk
Caramel
- 125 grams caster sugar
- 80 ml double cream
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 60 ml water
Butter Cream
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 160 grams unsalted butter
- 200 grams icing sugar
Decoration
- 6 dates (chopped)
- 30 g toffee pieces
Instructions
- Heat the oven to 190°C / fan 170°C / gas 5. Butter a 12 hole muffin tin.
- Cream together the butter and sugar with electric whisk (I use a Kitchen Aid).
- Add the eggs and also mix.
- Add the flour, baking powder and mix.
- Once the mixture is combined add the milk and mix.
- Once the mixture is all combined evenly add to the muffin tins and bake for 15-20 mins.
- Turn out the cakes on to a metal rack to cool.
Caramel
- Dissolve the sugar and 60ml of water in a saucepan on a gentle heat, then increase the heat to boil. Wait a few minutes, but do not stir. Watch it very carefully and and as soon as it changes colour and starts to thicken, remove immediately from the heat.
- Stand well back and add the double cream being very careful as it can be extremely hot. The cream may react and bubble up – you may think its gone wrong but it hasn’t. Keep stirring then add the vanilla.
- Now leave to completly cool. Once it has cooled down taste and if you desire add more vanilla.
Butter Cream
- Cream the butter and icing sugar together with the mixer.
- Add the caramel a little at a time. You will not need to use it all. Leave yourself some to decorate the cupcakes.
- Pick your favourite nozzle and pipe the caramel icing on to the cakes, add the chopped dates and fudge pieces, then drizzle with caramel.
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