Cinnamon Cupcakes with Caramel Frosting

These cinnamon cupcakes with caramel frosting are made with a deliciously cinnamon and brown sugar sponge cake cupcake, a smooth caramel frosting, and topped with a drizzle of caramel sauce.

For the caramel sauce

This really simple caramel sauce takes less than 10 minutes to come together. It's best to make the sauce first, so it can cool down while you're making the rest of the cupcakes.

Take some toffees and double cream and put them in a large saucepan. Gently heat together over medium-low heat. Stir the toffees occasionally because they can stick to the bottom of the pan.

Once everything is melted, set the pan aside and leave the caramel sauce to cool to room temperature.

For the cupcake base

The cupcakes are based on the tried and true vanilla sponge cupcake recipe that I used for these cupcakes.

To make them autumnal, you swap the caster sugar for light brown soft sugar and add a lot of ground cinnamon.

Start by mixing together butter and light brown soft sugar until it’s really light and fluffy.

Mix in the eggs one at a time.

Gently mix in the flour, cinnamon and raising agents. You’ll have to be careful not to overmix the flour at this stage. The cupcake batter is now done, it’s that simple!

Spoon the cupcake batter into the cupcake cases. An ice cream scoop is really useful for making sure the cupcakes are all the same size.

I weighed out 80g of batter into each cupcake base using a scale.

Baking the cupcakes

Once you’ve weighed your batter into the cupcake bases, put the baking tray in the oven for 18-20 minutes.

You’ll know when the cupcakes are done by inserting a skewer (or knife) into the centre of one.

If the skewer comes out clean then the cupcakes are done. If some batter sticks to the skewer, pop the cupcakes back in the oven for another couple of minutes.

For the frosting

Beat the butter until it’s pale and fluffy. It takes a good 5 minutes, so keep mixing until the butter looks very pale.

Add half the caramel sauce that you just made. Beat the caramel sauce and butter until fully combined.

Then you slowly mix in the icing sugar until it’s really smooth and fully combined.

Add the milk to loosen up the buttercream. You might not need all of the milk, so start by adding a splash at a time.

Beat by hand with a wooden spoon for a couple of minutes to knock the air out and get a perfect buttercream consistency.

To assemble the cupcakes

Once the cupcakes have fully cooled, it's time to assemble the cinnamon cupcakes cupcakes with caramel frosting.

Spoon the caramel buttercream into a piping bag fitted with a piping tip. I used the Wilton 8B tip.

Pipe the buttercream in swirls on top of the cupcakes, leaving a gap in the centre.

Pour the remaining caramel sauce into a piping bag and cut off the tip (or use a narrow piping tip). Squeeze the caramel sauce into the centre of the caramel frosting.

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