These cupcake-in-a-jar cupcakes were ordered by Melony!

They are chocolate cupcakes sandwiched with caramel and topped with strawberry butter icing and glitter!

This caramel apple cupcake recipe was a beta test- a delicious cinnamon and chopped tart apple base topped with a lightly caramel butter icing, some caramel and a creme caramel square!

This set of recipes is straight out of another one of my cupcake recipe books! “Crazy About Cupcakes” by Krystina Castella is an awesome book that has a collection of cupcake recipes, icing recipes, decorating tips and ideas, and then a whole set of recipes combining various recipes in interesting ways!

How the “beta testing” works is that I try something new, and you tell me what you think! If you want to try one of these recipes, there’s a small price to cover the cost of the ingredients. These cupcake and cookie experiments will cost you R70 each. Cake and cheesecake experiments will cost you R100 each. Only one “batch” of each recipe is available, so its first-come-first-served. Your order will have to be collected from me in Midrand. Biscuits can wait for collection, but cakes and cupcakes and such need to be collected the day they are baked, or a day later at most.

All you have to do is leave a comment on this post and tell me which one you would like to try, I will then email you further details.

So here’s the list of recipes I am going to be attempting.

• Brownie cupcakes (12) Tanya wants these.
• Caramel Apple cupcakes (12) Cara’s testing these!
• Cheesecake cupcakes (12) Anneke took these…
• Chocolate Chip Cookie cupcakes (12) Louisa B called dibs on these!
• Chocolate Raspberry cupcakes (12)
• Cookies and Cream cupcakes (12) Stacey wants these…
• Mint Chocolate Chip cupcakes (12) Alida is going to test these!!
• Tres Leches cupcakes (12) and Anneke reserved these!

Okay. With all my experimentation I have learned many things, and two of those things are about fudge and toffee. If an American recipe talks about fudge- its going to be chocolate flavoured, its not fudge as we know it here in South Africa. And if an American recipe talks about toffee it will most likely be the crispy kind that you find on toffee apples, not soft chewy toffees that pull your fillings out!

This is another entry for the Food24 Cupcake Competition (which closes tomorrow) and its a beta test that Anneke agreed to be a guinea pig for! Caramel cupcakes with caramel butter icing and toffee shards for decoration!

Preheat oven to 180C and fill a cupcake pan with liners.

The Cupcakes

185g unsalted butter (softened)

¾ cup castor sugar

3 eggs

1 cup ready-made, thick caramel filling

1 cup self-raising flour

¼ cup plain flour

2 tablespoons milk

Beat the butter and sugar until light and creamy.

Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Add the caramel and beat until combined.

Sift the flours together and fold in the sifted flours alternating with the milk.

Divide half the mixture evenly among the cupcake liners.

Bake them for 15 minutes, or until a cake skewer comes out clean when inserted into the centre of a cupcake.

Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

The Icing

1½ cups icing sugar

20g unsalted butter (softened)

½ cup ready-made, thick caramel filling

Beat all the ingredients with an electric beater till smooth.

The Toffee

½ cup castor sugar

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Line a baking sheet with non-stick baking paper.

Place the sugar & lemon juice in a small heavy-based non-stick saucepan over a low heat- shaking the saucepan occasionally- until the sugar melts and becomes a light caramel (watch it closely as it will burn quickly once it starts to caramelise).

Pour it onto the non-stick paper and spread it very thinly (do this quickly as the sugar will harden as you spread it).

Set aside to cool and harden.

Spread the caramel icing over the cupcakes.

Peel the paper away from the toffee and break it into shards.

Decorate each cupcake with toffee shards.