Baking Mondays - S is for Snickers Cupcakes

Chocolate cake filled with caramel and nuts, topped with caramel swiss meringue buttercream, chunks of Snickers and nuts, and finally drizzled with milk chocolate.

Snickers would have to be one of my all time favourite chocolate bars, so when they won the poll last week you could say that I was just a little bit excited. Lets see - chocolate, caramel, nougat and peanuts - could there be a better combination of yumminess? I think not.


I was actually a bit nervous this week after my absolute failure with my white chocolate raspberry cupcakes - but I am happy to report that these cupcakes rocked my socks off! I am officially back on track. So without further ado I present you with the recipe for Snickers cupcakes - The Red Deer style...

Devil's Food Cake from The Australian Women's Weekly - Classic Cakes
Made 20 cupcakes

180g unsalted butter, softened
385g caster sugar
3 eggs
225g self-raising flour
75g plain flour
1/2 tsp bi-carb soda
70g cocoa powder
3 tsps instant coffee granules
125ml water
125ml milk

1. Preheat the oven to 180 C. Line 2 12-hole muffin trays with cupcake cases.
2. Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy; beat in the eggs one at a time.
3. Fold in sifted flours, soda and cocoa with combined coffee, water and milk, in two batches.
4. Spoon mixture into cupcake cases and bake for 30 minutes (or until a toothpick comes out clean). Set aside to cool.

Snickers Cupcake Filling

1 cup peanuts
1 tin of Top'n'Fill Caramel

1. Mix together the peanuts and caramel. As a side note if you are not short of time it would be far yummier to make your own caramel - but with a baby constantly trying to pull down my pants I decided to take the easy route.
   
2. Once the cupcakes have cooled cut a well out of each cupcake, fill with the Snickers filling and then replace the piece of cupcake that was cut out.

Caramel Swiss Meringue Buttercream

Follow the directions for almond swiss meringue buttercream but replace the vanilla extract and almond essence with 4 tablespoons of caramel flavoured ice-cream topping.


Putting it all together

First off you need to make your topping so you will need the following...

1 cup milk chocolate melts
1/4 cup peanuts, roughly chopped
2 Snickers bars, roughly chopped

1. Top each cupcake with a swirl of caramel swiss meringue buttercream.
2. Sprinkle each cupcake with the combined peanuts and Snickers bar.



3. Melt the chocolate in the microwave in 30 second intervals, stirring between intervals.
4. Drizzle each cupcake with chocolate.
5. Devour...
   

So the ratings?

Me - 9/10 - I think the only change I would make is to make my own caramel - that would make it super yummy! Other than that I love these cupcakes!
Mat - 10/10 - snickerrific!