High Altitude Chocolate Truffle Salted Caramel Cupcakes
Decadent chocolate truffle cupcakes, filled with rich chocolate ganache, frosted with fluffy, salted caramel buttercream, and sprinkled with toffee bits.
All recipes on Curly Girl Kitchen are developed for high altitude at 5,280 feet. See FAQs for adjusting to higher or lower elevations.
Equipment
- Stand Mixer with Whisk Attachment
Ingredients
Cupcakes
- 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled
- 1 ⅓ cups granulated sugar
- ½ cup unsweetened, Dutch-processed cocoa powder
- ½ tsp (scant) baking powder
- 1 tsp (scant) baking soda
- ¾ tsp coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
- 1 ½ tsp instant espresso powder
- 3 large eggs
- ¾ cup whole milk
- ¾ cup sour cream
- ¾ cup vegetable oil
- 1 ½ tsp vanilla extract
Buttercream
- 1 ½ cups unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- ⅓ cup salted caramel sauce, homemade or store bought
- 3 cups powdered sugar
- 1 ½ tsp meringue powder
- 1 ½ tsp vanilla extract
- ¼ tsp coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
- ¼ cup toffee bits, for garnish
Ganache
- 9 oz good-quality dark chocolate, chopped
- 9 oz heavy whipping cream
Instructions
Cupcakes
- Preheat the oven to 350 F, and line two standard muffin pans with 24 paper liners. If you only have one pan, you can bake half the batter at a time, and just let the rest of the batter rest at room temperature while the first batch bakes.
- In a large bowl, sift together the dry ingredients. Add the liquid ingredients, and whisk for about 10-15 seconds until well combined.
- Use a 1/4 cup measuring cup to spoon the batter into the cups, filling them no more than 2/3 full.
- Bake on the center oven rack for about 18-20 minutes, until the centers spring back when lightly touched.
- Cool in the pan for 2 minutes, then gently transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely before filling and frosting.
Buttercream
- In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the butter for 1 minute until smooth.
- Add the caramel sauce and mix to combine.
- With the mixer running on low, add the powdered sugar by spoonfuls, the meringue powder and the vanilla, mixing until thick and combined.
- Increase speed to medium and whip for 4-5 minutes, scraping the bowl down several times, until light and fluffy. Taste the buttercream and add the salt as needed.
- If the buttercream is too thick, add some milk or cream, 1-2 teaspoons at a time.
Ganache
- Chop the chocolate and scrape into a bowl.
- Pour the cream into a small saucepan. Warm over medium low heat, just until it begins to simmer around the edges. Remove from the heat and pour the hot cream over the chopped chocolate.
- Let the mixture stand for several minutes, then use a spatula to stir the ganache until smooth.
Assembly
- Use a cupcake corer to remove the centers of the cooled cupcakes. If you like, you can save the pieces of cake to use in a trifle.
- Before the ganache cools and thickens, spoon it into the centers of the cupcakes. If you have any ganache leftover, you can save it to drizzle over the top of the buttercream.
- Fit a piping bag with tip 6B, and fill with buttercream. Pipe the buttercream onto the cupcakes.
- If you like, drizzle the top of the buttercream with any leftover ganache.
- Sprinkle the tops of the cupcakes with toffee bits.
- The ganache will stay soft and molten for a while, so if you need to firm it up more quickly, just refrigerate the cupcakes for 1 hour. Take them back out of the refrigerator to serve at room temperature.
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