Popcorn & Salted Caramel Cupcakes

We were told time and time again how long and tedious the house buying process was, but for some reason I always imagined it would run smoothly when our time came…have I ever told you I’m a dreamer?

It’s been almost 6 months of waiting, and while this is almost average in the length it takes, it feels like time has paused. Liam has been handling most of the paperwork, and to be honest I’ve left him to it, too many cooks and all that. Instead I’ve been focusing on the more fun things, such as decoration, and I’m itching to start shopping.

We have our eyes on the most beautiful sofas from Next Home, a two-seater and one snuggler chair, both equally perfect for those lazy movie nights. In our flat, unlike the vast majority, our movie nights were on a Sunday. To be more precise they were more like long movie afternoons and involved the usual suspects; popcorn, chocolate and plenty of tea.

Popcorn and tea were never much of a combination, but when you slather said popcorn over a salted caramel cupcake all kinds of wonderful things occur.

Makes|12 cupcakes

Preparation time|1 hour

Baking time| 25 minutes

Salted Caramel

75g Caster Sugar

2 tbsp Water

75g Light Muscovado Sugar

50g Unsalted Butter

100ml Double Cream

1/2tsp Flaked Salt

Vanilla & Brown Sugar Cupcake

175g unsalted butter

175g light muscavado sugar

3 large free-range eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

175g self-raising flour

Sweet and Salty popcorn for decoration

Salted Caramel Buttercream

160g salted butter, softened

200g icing sugar

Salted Caramel (see recipe here)

Start by making your salted and leave to one side – see my recipe here

 Preheat the oven to 170C and line your cupcake tray with cupcake cases.

Cream the butter and muscovado sugar together until light and fluffy then one by one crack in each egg, mixing well in-between. Add the vanilla extract and mix to combine.

Sift the flour and baking powder into the bowl and fold through the mixture until smooth.

Divide between all cupcake cases and bake for about 20 minutes until golden-brown and a cake tester comes out clean.

Leave to cool on a wire rack for an hour (or overnight in tupperware)

For Salted Caramel Buttercream

Cream the butter and icing sugar together until smooth then add ¾ of the salted caramel mixture, leaving ¼ for drizzling at the end.

Scoop into a piping bag with your chosen nozzle and pipe a small mound of icing on top.

Decorate the cupcakes with popcorn until the icing is completely covered then drizzle with the remaining salted caramel.

Heavenly