Halloween cupcakes: Salted caramel spiderweb cupcakes

I love Halloween. Correction i used to.

No longer a kid, means that unfortunately i can't dress up as a witch, with itchy purple hair and long black gloves with red fingernails stuck on. Instead i have to stay at home, moping. while my sister gets to go out 'trick or treating'.

But fear not, to all those people who aren't kids or live in America. These bad boys certainly make up for the free sweets and taste even better.

Salted caramel cupcakes with salted caramel icing. Trust me this icing is just like heaven on a spoon, try to ice all of the cupcakes before tasting the icing because ... once tried you will want to gobble it all up.

The cupcakes are made with dark sugar to give the caramel flavor, though because of the dark sugar they are denser than most other cupcakes. I used salted butter so added only a tiny bit of extra salt but if you want caramel cupcakes use un-salted butter and don't add any salt. 

The icing....A bowl full of heaven. Salted caramel sauce but in icing form!If you want to create the spider web effect, just reserve some of the caramel sauce before adding the icing sugar. Then ice the cupcakes but don't pile the icing up to high.Then create a swirl pattern on top with the sauce then with a toothpick or a skewer draw a line from the centre outwards, then repeat until you have created a spider web design.see below.

ingredients

-190 g plain flour

-3/4 teaspoon baking powder

-1/2 teaspoon salt 

-200 g dark brown sugar

-100 g caster sugar

- 115 g unsalted butter, softened 

-2 large eggs

-1 teaspoon vanilla extract

-120 ml whole milk 

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Line tin with cupcake cases.
2. In a bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time and vanilla. sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Slowly mix in the dry ingredients, until no flour remains. Slowly stir in the milk.
3. divide the mixture between the 12 cases.Bake cupcakes for 22-23 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean. cool before icing.

Icing

Ingredients

- 115 g salted butter

-200 g dark brown sugar

-80 ml double cream

-1/2 teaspoon salt

-240g icing sugar, sifted

melt the butter in a small saucepan. Once melted, add brown sugar and double cream. Stir constantly until sugar is dissolved. Add salt. Allow to bubble for 2 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool. Do not place in the fridge to cool. Beat in icing sugar. If wished create spiderweb design.