Happy Belated Birthday Cake!

On September 20th I turned 30. At the time, I was in gorgeous, sunny Kauai. But I'm back now and wanted a birthday cake. My mother gave me, among other wonderful gifts, Martha Stewart's Cupcakes.  Patrick laughed as I looked through it the first time; I got very excited over a recipe, turned the page, then got all excited over the next recipe. It is full of incredible cupcakes, and this is my first attempt at one of them: Chocolate Salted-Caramel Mini Cupcakes.

I made the cupcakes themselves last night before bed, and got up early this morning to tackle the salted-caramel filling and dark chocolate frosting. I've never made caramel from scratch, and it was a fun (if warm) experiment.

 

The dark chocolate cupcakes get little divots cut into the tops of them, then filled with warm caramel. A little sea salt is sprinkled over the top of this. Then you pipe dark chocolate frosting over that, and add a teensy bit more sea salt for garnish.

What do you think? Worth turning 30 for, I'd say!