Baking bloggity: Chocolate cupcake with Caramel drizzle and Spun sugar topping.

I love baking, so I thought I'd start a baking blog. I'm not a professional, but I enjoy learning how to bake new recipes. To start, here's a recipe for Chocolate cupcakes with Caramel drizzle and Spun sugar topping. I hope you enjoy it :)

Ingredients:

Cupcake batter:

1 cup boiling water

1 cup cocoa powder

1 cup milk

2 3/4 cup all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter or margarine, softened

2 1/2 cups sugar

3/4 cups applesauce

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

Icing:

1 cup heavy whipping cream

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 Tablespoon granulated white sugar

Caramel Drizzle:

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup water

1/2 cup cream

1 tablespoon corn syrup

2 tablespoons salted butter

Spun Sugar:

2 cups white granulated sugar

1/2 cup water

1 teaspoon corn syrup

Directions:

Cupcakes -

-Preheat oven to 350 and line muffin pan with liners.

-In a medium size bowl, whisk together boiling water and cocoa powder. Next, stir in the milk. Set this aside for now.

-In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Set aside as well.

-In a large bowl, cream the butter, then add the sugar and beat until fluffy. Stir in the applesaue, then add the vanilla. Stir in the 1/3 of the flour mix until just combined. Then add half of the cocoa mix and stir. Continue until both mixes are gone.

-Fill liners about half way with batter and bake for about 15-20 mins (or when a toothpick can be inserted and come out clean).

Caramel Drizzle -

- In a saucepan, mix together sugar, water, and corn syrup. Bring mix to boil, without stirring, on high heat. Boil until it reaches a golden amber color. Remove from heat and carefully add the cream in a steady stream, stirring constantly. Mixture will expand and sputter, so please be careful. Next add butter and stir until butter is melted. Cool to room temp

Icing -

- In a large bowl, stir together whipping cream, sugar and vanilla. Cover and chill in fridge for 30 minutes. Once chilled, beat mix until stiff peaks form.

*Picture is with icing and caramel drizzle*

Spun Sugar -

-Prepare area by taping two sticks to your counter (see picture below), and laying down (alot!) of newpaper to catch spills. Also, lay out a cookie sheet and spray it with cooking spray.

* I added alot more newspaper than what this picture shows. I covered my whole floor.*

- In a large metal bowl, fill half way with ice water. Set aside. In a saucepan, mix together sugar, water, and corn syrup. Without mixing bring to a boil, on high heat, and continue boiling until mixture reaches 310 degrees. (Now, I was baking this without a candy thermometer to tell me when my spun sugar reached the 310 cracking point, so needless to say, it took quite a few tries, but it ended up being about 6 minutes of boiling time once the mix started to boil). Once mix has reach 310, remove from heat and place saucepan in the metal bowl of ice water. (This 'shocks' the mix and stops it from cooking more). Make sure no water accidentally spills into the sauce pan!

-Dip a fork (or wire whisk) in the mix and drizzle some on the greased cookie sheet. Make any shape you like. You can also dip the fork in the mix and quickly shake it over the two sticks. (Feel free to youtube 'Spun sugar' and a bunch of videos will come up showing you how to do this, since reading it just doesn't quite paint the picture of how to do this). Very fine strands of sugar will catch on the sticks. You can ball this up to make little 'nests' or 'balls' to put on top of the cupcakes. I recommend putting them in your fridge right away, as my kitchen was so warm from the baking that the spun sugar nests started to melt! And don't worry if any of the spun sugar gets on your apron or clothes, just soak them in hot water before throwing them in the wash and it should come off.