Turtle Cupcakes
 
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
 
These chocolate cupcakes taste like your favorite ice-cream shoppe turtle sundae. But in cupcake form. Ice cream sundae, cupcake form. Do it. Do it, do it, doitdoitdoit. :) Enjoy! Cupcakes adapted from Spinach Tiger Hot Fudge Sauce from Smitten Kitchen
Serves: 48 cupcakes
Ingredients
Cupcake Ingredients:
  • 3 and ⅓ cups all purpose flour
  • ⅔ cups dark unsweetened cocoa powder
  • ⅔ cups regular unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1 tablespoon baking soda
  • 1 and ⅓ cups brown sugar
  • 1 and ⅓ cups sugar
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 and ½ cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter at cool room temperature
  • 3 cups buttermilk
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla
  • 5 eggs at room temperature
Hot Fudge Ingredients:
  • 4 ounces semi-sweet chocolate
  • 3 tablespoons butter, unsalted
  • ⅔ cup water
  • ⅓ cup sugar
  • 6 tablespoons corn syrup
  • Pinch of salt
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
Vanilla Buttercream Ingredients:
  • 1 and ½ cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter at cool room temperature
  • 2-lb bag of powdered/icing/confectioners sugar
  • ¼ to ½ cup heavy cream
  • 3 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • dash of salt
Garnish ingredients:
  • 1 cup finely chopped pecans
  • ½ cup caramel sauce
Instructions
Cupcake directions:
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
  2. Prepare 2 cupcake pans with greaseproof paper liners.
  3. Sift together cocoa, flour, baking soda, salt into a bowl.
  4. Add remaining ingredients (sugar, brown sugar, salt, butter, buttermilk, vanilla and eggs) and beat on medium speed for 3 minutes.
  5. Fill cupcake liners ½ to ⅔ full.
  6. Bake 16-19 minutes or until firm on top.
  7. Remove from tins and allow cool completely on a wire rack.
Hot Fudge Directions:
  1. Melt the chocolate and butter very slowly in a double boiler or in the microwave, stirring frequently until combined.
  2. Meanwhile, heat the water to boiling in the small, heavy saucepan.
  3. When the butter and chocolate have melted, stir the mixture into the boiling water.
  4. Add the sugar, corn syrup and salt and mix until smooth.
  5. Turn the heat up and stir until mixture starts to boil; adjust heat so that sauce is just maintained at the boiling point, stirring occasionally.
  6. Allow sauce to boil for nine minutes.
  7. Remove from heat and cool for 15 minutes. Stir in vanilla extract.
Vanilla Buttercream Directions:
  1. In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat butter until smooth and creamy.
  2. Add powdered sugar, cream, salt and vanilla extract. Beat on low until incorporated.
  3. Increase speed to medium, and beat for 4-5 minutes or until light and fluffy. Add more cream if necessary to reach desired consistency.
Assembly directions:
  1. Place cooled hot fudge sauce into a small piping bag fitted with a small star tip or filliing tip.
  2. Carefully fill each cupcake with a small amount of hot fudge. Reserve remaining fudge for topping.
  3. Pipe a large dollop of buttercream on each cupcake.
  4. Using a spoon, remove a small indentation of frosting out of the top of each mound of frosting.
  5. Combine caramel and chopped pecans in a small bowl, stir to combine and completely coat.
  6. Spoon a generous amount of caramel/pecan topping into each frosting indentation. Be messy. Messy is good.
  7. Top each cupcake with a drizzle of the remaining hot fudge.
  8. Store in an airtight container for up to 3 days.
  9. Enjoy!
Recipe by Lemon Sugar at http://lemon-sugar.com/turtle-cupcakes/