Caramel Sauce to Caramel Frost!

Chocolate cupcakes and salted caramel frosting

Happy Tuesday everyone! It's been a busy summer here at Lizzy Bee's, between the baby (read: extremely FAST crawler) and vacation, I've been out and about! Right back from vacation, I recently made 3 dozen cupcakes for a party and came across quite a conundrum: how to translate salted caramel sauce into salted caramel frosting. I have a go-to recipe for a lot of frostings but I couldn't find this one among my arsenal (much to my disappointment). This time I had to use a little creativity and pull some skills from culinary school. Here's how it goes:

I started with this recipe. Note: I used a full teaspoon of salt. I needed it REALLY salty in order to keep that taste in the frosting.

Bobby Flay's Salted Caramel Sauce
New York Times 

Ingredients

• 1 cup granulated sugar
• ½ cup heavy cream
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• ¾ teaspoon kosher salt, or to taste

Directions

1. In a medium saucepan set over medium-high heat, combine the sugar with 1/4 cup cold water and stir to combine. Cook, without stirring, until the sugar has turned a deep amber hue, approximately 10 to 12 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, warm the cream in a small saucepan. When the caramel is ready, slowly whisk in the warm cream and continue simmering the mixture until it is smooth, another 2 to 3 minutes. Remove from heat, then whisk in the butter, and then the salt, to taste. Serve warm.

Not too challenging, right? Once you've got that and let it cool, then take your favorite cream cheese frosting (or buttercream) recipe. Add the caramel after you've made the frosting. I used every. last. drop. Then taste. You'll see that you lose a little of that salty flavor once you've muted it in the frosting, so veeeeery slowly, sprinkle a couple crystals on top of the frosted cake/cupcakes. Just a few. Don't turn it into a salt shaker. Voila! Done.

Happy baking!