Every year I make chocolate cupcakes for a local event.  This year’s version is the deep chocolate passion, and for the milk chocolate syrup I used unsweetened chocolate (40% of the amount called for, since the recipe calls for 40-41% milk chocolate) plus caramelized sugar- made for a wonderful caramel undertone.  The ganache is the caramel ganache from RHC, and the topper is made from caramelized sugar/butter, toasted almonds and quick-tempered dark chocolate.  I dipped them partly for taste, but also so that the caramel wouldn’t dissolve before they were eaten (in my experience, caramel only lasts for about two hours in frosting before it starts to dissolve).  Very yummy.

I have to say that I was very happy to be able to make syruped chiffon cupcakes a day ahead, which I normally wouldn’t do with buttercake cupcakes. On the day of the event our power went out and I wouldn’t have been able to bake.

Would love to find dark brown cupcake liners, does anyone know of a source?  One or two places I tried were sold out.

Looks great!!  I want to eat one!

Julie,
These look beautiful…your caramel and almonds really makes these show stoppers. Wish that I had one!
The last brown (natural) cupcake liners that I purchased were at Sur La Table. 

Julie, those are beautiful, and they sound delicious!  The piping is lovely, and the toppers are just great!  Thanks for the tip re dipping them, also. Lucky re timing/syruping with the power outage!!!  *pshew*

OMG…Delish!  And they look fabulous, too!  I must ask about the tip you used to pipe the ganache (the swirls are picture perfect!) ...what number/brand is it?  I always have to do several circles to cover the cupcake and then there’s too much frosting (a huge problem, I know   ).  I also love baking in stages, with a toddler and new born in the house I’d never bake anything with more than one component if it wasn’t for freezers and cakes that can withstand a day on the counter!

Lottie, Dar, Anne and Sherrie, thanks so much for the kind words!

Dar, I did use natural brown (paper bag color) liners but I’ve seen chocolate cupcakes photographed with dark brown liners and they look great.  Checked SLT but they don’t have the plain dark brown liners.  The search continues…

Sherrie, I used a Matfer polycarbonate F7 tip to pipe the ganache, here’s a legend of their tips: http://www.culinarycookware.com/pastry-tip-size-and-shape-legend?___store=english

And here’s a link to the tip that I have: http://www.foodservicewarehouse.com/matfer/167064/p368640.aspx

Julie,

Your unsweetened chocolate + carmelized sugar has me wondering—do you think that the light whipped ganache would work with unsweetened chocolate + honey rather than sweetened chocolate?

Many thanks!

—ak

Yes, but you would need to back out the water in the honey from the water in the cream.  That is, figure out how much water is in the amount of honey you wanted to use, and then figure out how much cream would have that much water and remove it from the recipe.  Otherwise, it may be too thin.

Many thanks!

They are beautiful and look luscious! What better combination that chocolate and carmel.  I love carmel even more than I love chocolate. These look great.

Julie, it looks beautiful! The topper is gorgeous and sounds yummy.

There’s a local store here that carries plain brown cupcake liner. The shade of brown is about the same as the caramel ganache on your cupcakes. They’re selling a pack of 500 for $10. Their website is http://www.cakecrafts.net/.

They don’t have a catalog online though, so I’m not sure how you can look at the liners. Sorry - this is not really helpful :(.

Flour Girl and Jenn, thanks so much!

Jenn, thanks for the “plain brown wrapper” tip, I’ll follow up on it.

Wow, those look fanastic.  Love how you can just grab the caramel topper, dip it in the ganache, and eat!!

yumyumyumyum they look so good